Fi  d  rlfcC  1  u  b 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF. CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


H 

1 

I 


The  Log 

of  the 

North  Shore  Club 

Paddle  and  Portage  on    the    Hundred 
Trout  Rivers  of  Lake  Superior 


Kirkland  B.  Alexander 


With  40  Illustrations 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New    York    and    London 

Gbe    "Knickerbocker  press 

1911 


I  V 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 

BY 
KIRKLAND  B.  ALEXANDER 


Tfbe  Imfcfctrbocfter  prew,  «ew  ftork 


go 

THE  MEMORY  OF   HIM  WHO 
THROUGH  ALL  THE  TRAILS  OF  LIFE  WAS  MY  GUIDE 

MY    BROTHER 

THIS  LITTLE  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  .  ix 

CHASING  A  CAMP  SITE  AND  THE  LURE  OF  A  PER- 
AMBULATING WATERFALL  i 
DISCOVERIES,  DAY-DREAMS,  AND  MENDACITY  AT 

DUNCAN'S  COVE 27 

AT  THE  KNEE  OF  MICHAEL  ....  50 
EXPLORING  THE  HEADWATERS  OF  THE  STEEL 

RIVER  AND  BILLY  ERASER'S  ANECDOTES  .  67 
"  No  LANDING  FOR  BOATS  "  ....  88 
IN  THE  TROUT  DEMOCRACY  AND  REEFS  OF 

CHIPPEWA  HARBOR 113 

A  BEATIFIC  ERROR  AND  A  SECRET  MISSION  .  138 
WE  ENCOUNTER  "PROFANITY  PORTAGE"  AND 

"His  LORDSHIP ' '  PORTAGES  THE  POTATOES  .  1 6 1 
THE  PERILS  OF  RUNNING  WHITE  WATER  FIND 

WILLIAM  TEDDY'S  TONGUE  .  .  .182 
THE  TROUT  OF  CAT  PORTAGE,  THE  FULFILMENT 

OF  ELEVEN  MONTHS'  DREAMING        .         .     204 


[v] 


nvifi-l 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"WAGUSH  TAKES  us  OUT  TO  THE  TROUT  REEFS" 

Frontispiece 

A  RESPITE  FROM  THE  CARES  OF  AUTHORSHIP      .  10 

A  RIFT  AND  SOME  SHELTER  IN  THE  SHORE  ROCKS  20 

AT  LAST — DUNCAN'S  COVE      ....  28 

11  THEY  'RE  RISING,  RIGHT  IN  FRONT  OF  CAMP  "  28 

"A  LIGHT  BREEZE  WAS  RUFFLING  THE  LAKE  WHEN 

WE  HAD  BREAKFASTED  "     .         .         .         .30 

HE  WAS  LURKING  AT  THE  RIVER-MOUTH   .         .      42 

"  THERE  's  A  RARE  CAMPING-SPOT  AT  DUNCAN'S 

COVE" 42 

"  THEN  THE  SAND  BEACH  BEGAN  SWINGING  OPEN 

LIKE  A  GATE" 46 

JOE  CADOTTE,  GUIDE  AND  WILDERNESS-BROTHER  50 

WHEN  SUPERIOR  BEGINS  TO  SULK     ...  50 

POSING  FOR  THE  LOG-KEEPER  AT  SQUAW  HARBOR  60 

"  THE  TRAGIC  ISOLATION  OF  THAT  LIGHTHOUSE  ! "  76 

"JiM  TALKED  LITTLE  AT  THE  CAMP-FIRE  THAT 

NIGHT" 82 

[vii] 


Illustrations 


PAGE 

1 '  IT  WAS  THE  CAMP-BOSS,  OF  COURSE,  WHO  DID  IT  "      84 
A  CONSULTATION — "  WAGUSH  II.  "  VIVISECTED  .       86 

"  WAGUSH  II.  HAULED  us  ALONG  320  MILES  OF 

SUPERIOR'S  SHORE-LINE  "  ...      90 

NORTH-BOUND   FOR   THE    LAND   OF   VACATION 

DREAMS  . 92 

"  NINETY-FOOT  FALLS  " 102 

"  FOR  WE  HAD  FOUND  THE  PLACE  OF  MONSTER 

TROUT" 102 

His  EXCELLENCY,  THE  GOVERNOR,  THE  CENTRAL 

FIGURE,  MUCH  PREFERS  THIS  TO  GOVERNING     104 

"  HE  WAS  A  LITTLE  BETTER  THAN  FIVE  POUNDS  "     1 10 

GARGANTUA  LIGHT  Is  MORE  HOSPITABLE  THAN 

IT  LOOKS 116 

ABANDONED  BY  THE  HONORABLE  HUDSON'S  BAY 

COMPANY         .         .         .         .         .         .116 

WHERE  THE  STEAMER  DROPS  YOU  OVERBOARD 

AMONG  THE  TROUT  REEFS  .         .         .         .120 

"  WE  MUST  TRAVEL  LIGHT  "     ....     126 

THE  NEW  RACE  IN  THE  LAP  OF  THE  RACE  THAT 

is  PASSING 134 

WILLIAM    TEDDY    EMBARRASSED  AND    GEORGE 

ANDRE  RESIGNED 140 


Illustrations 


PAGE 
TOMMIE    NlSH-I-SHIN-I-WOG    MANS    THE   FRYING 

PAN 152 

" THEN  CAME  4 BEAUTY  LAKE '"       .         .         .174 

41  SOMETHING  IN  THE  WAY  OF  WILD  WATERWAYS 

WORTHWHILE" 174 

SNUG  CAMP  ON  HAWK  LAKE     .        .        .        .176 

"  WE  PUSHED  OFF  TO  HUNT  OUT  THE  MOUTH  OF 

HAWK-LAKE  RIVER  "         .         .         .         .180 

THESE  ROCKS  ARE  NAN-I-BOU-JOU  AND  FAMILY    .     182 

OF  COURSE,  WE  LUNCHED  HERE  AT  THE  LOWER 

END  OF  THE  RAPIDS 182 

A  SETTING  BECOMING  TO  MOST  ANY  CANOE  .  186 
To  MAKE  CAMP  OR  TO  PUSH  ON — TIME  6. 30  P.M.  .  186 
ACHIEVEMENTS  AND  INVIDIOUS  COMPARISONS  .  190 

DIARY-WRITING  —  AND   MANICURING  —  ON   THE 

PORTAGE 194 

THE  FIRESAND  Is   "A  PRETTY  AND   COMPACT 

RIVER" 198 


INTRODUCTION 

HOW  little  and  inaccurately  are  Lake 
Superior  and  its  rocky  shores  and 
massive  wilderness  known!  Captains  of  the 
lake  freighters,  skippers  of  schooners,  hardy 
fishermen  in  their  rough  camps,  the  Chippewa 
Indians,  generations  of  trappers,  and  a  few, 
a  very  few,  gentlemen-fishermen  by  accident 
or  family  tradition  know  that  vast  and 
impressive  land  of  primitive  enchantment. 
And  that  is  about  all.  Along  the  South 
Shore  from  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie  to  Duluth, 
far  to  the  west,  there  are  towns  and  cities, 
magically  growing  and  ceaselessly  thriving. 
There  are  many  lumbering  camps  and  even 
clubs  of  gentlemen-fishermen  whose  luxurious 
tastes  may  still  defy  the  wilderness. 

It  is  very  different  along  the  North  Shore. 
That  is  the  Superior  country.     In  that  ex- 
panse of  rocky  coast  from  Sault  de  Sainte 
[xi] 


Introduction 


Marie  about  150  miles  northward  to  Michipo- 
coten  Harbor  there  are  four  fishing  stations. 
From  Michipocoten  Harbor  to  Nepigon, 
roughly  220  miles,  for  the  coast  is  indescrib- 
ably irregular,  there  are  but  isolated  lumber 
camps;  in  some  rude,  hidden  little  harbor  a 
fishing  station;  three  settlements  of  a  general 
store  each;  the  few  isolated  lonely  stations 
of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railroad.  The 
fisherman,  the  pulp-wood  hunter,  and  the 
prospector  alone  find  profit  and  economic 
possibilities  in  that  North  Superior  country. 
Unquestionably,  it  will  never  be  otherwise. 
Nature  there  offers  absolutely  nothing  save 
to  him  who  comes  to  venerate  her  and  her 
alone.  The  portage  trails  and  the  snow-shoe 
trails  are  still  there  and  they  are  worn  precisely 
as  they  were  worn  two  hundred  years  ago. 
It  is  all  rocky  ridges,  impenetrable  thickets, 
archipelagoes  of  islands.  The  moose  and 
wolf  will  undoubtedly  ever  roam  those 
forests  of  pine  and  spruce  and  balsam  and 
birch  and  the  sacred  silences  will  never  be 


Introduction 


desecrated,  save  by  the  scream  of  the  gull  and 
the  eagle  circling  overhead.  Upon  the  back 
of  the  Pic  River  there  are  the  great-grandsons 
of  that  Indian  tribe  which  was  there  when 
the  French  plundered  the  Hudson's  Bay 
post  in  1750.  Michipocoten  Island,  which 
the  hardy  Alexander  Henry,  Esq.,  boasted  of 
discovering  in  1760,  "peopled  by  snakes," 
brooded  over  by  the  Great  Spirit,  "The  Island 
of  Yellow  Sands,"  is  still  the  occasional  home 
of  the  daring  prospector,  braving  solitude 
and  privation  in  his  mad  hunt  for  gold  and 
copper. 

It  has  changed  not  at  all.  It  will  change 
not  at  all.  And  the  American  people  know 
the  vast  country  and  inland  sea  so  vaguely! 

Somewhere  back  in  lakes,  deep  buried  in  the 
unknown  wild,  one  hundred  rivers  take  their 
source  and  flow  down  through  rocky  gorges, 
plunge  over  falls,  and  roll  at  last  into  Lake 
Superior.  Men,  coming  in  tugs  and  yachts, 
have  named  those  rivers  and  fish  for  the 
trout  where  waters  of  river  and  great  lake 
[xiii] 


Introduction 


mingle.  Not  a  tenth  of  them  have  been 
explored  above  their  first  falls.  Beyond 
those  falls  there  are  virgin  fishing  and  terra 
incognita;  lakes  of  muscallonge;  deep,  dark 
pools  whose  tenants  have  yet  to  distinguish 
between  the  fly  that  is  succulent  and  di- 
gestible and  the  fly  that  is  false  and  flung 
by  death.  There  nature  is  undisturbed  and 
man  comes  only,  if  at  all,  once  in  a  decade 
or  a  half-century.  The  trout  and  salmon 
rivers  of  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick 
and  Labrador  are  better  known  than  Lake 
Superior,  even  with  its  Agewa  River  and  Steel 
River  and  Nepigon  River,  where  are  the 
largest,  gamiest,  mightiest  trout  in  the 
world. 

So,  many  years  now  the  summer  has  led 
us  there.  From  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie,  at 
the  extreme  southeastern  corner  of  the  great 
lake,  where  wilderness  shrinkingly  touches 
civilization,  around  that  coast  northward 
and  then  westward  to  the  Hudson's  Bay 
post  at  Nepigon,  we  have  coasted  in  Macki- 
[xivj 


Introduction 


naw  boat,  in  canoe,  and,  very  lately  indeed 
and  reluctantly,  in  gasoline  cruiser.  That 
is  about  370  miles  of  Superior  shore-line  and 
each  mile  of  it  has  multiplied  itself  amazingly 
in  priceless  and  ineffaceable  memories. 

Each  succeeding  year  the  personnel  of 
the  party  changed.  That  was  inevitable. 
Business  exigencies  in  the  days  of  incom- 
parable dreaming  and  preparation  often 
reared  their  Medusa-heads.  To  many  en- 
chanted places  we  have  not  returned  since 
death  came  among  us  and  we  never  shall, 
for  the  memories  of  those  places  illumined 
with  a  single  personality  and  a  presiding 
spirit  are  much  too  exquisite. 

The  purpose  of  these  little  chronicles — 
and  they  have  been  taken  from  the  author's 
diary  kept  throughout  these  years — is  to 
present  to  those  who  know  not  Superior,  and 
those  who  yet  happily  may  come  to  know 
her,  the  trivial  events  of  camp-life,  trivial 
truly,  yet  so  full  of  color  and  vitality 
and  vast  meaning  to  those  who  know  the 
[xv] 


Introduction 


intimacies  of  the  rushing  stream  and  camp- 
fire,  gleaming  in  the  northern  twilight  beside 
an  unknown  lake.  Some  of  us,  a  very  few, 
have  gone  through  these  little  adventures 
and  scenes  for  these  successive  years.  It  is 
not  easy  to  compile  incidents  so  that  they 
be  of  interest  to  the  impartial  observer,  least 
of  all  to  the  unlover  of  the  wilderness.  To 
give  them  sequence  and  cohesion  one  is 
tempted  to  fictionize.  To  give  them  accuracy 
and  unity  one  is  oppressed  with  their  trivial- 
ity. The  logical  compromise  has  seemed 
attainable  only  in  humanizing  them  and 
imbuing  them  with  the  spirit  of  the  North- 
land and  a  note  of  the  song  that  then  sang 
in  our  hearts.  If  only  these  little  chronicles 
awaken  one  thought  of  the  North  and  sound 
one  wild,  free  note  of  the  wilderness  that 
beguiled  us,  the  test  will  indeed  have  been 
met.  It  has  been  purposed  for  the  little 
scenes  and  incidents  between  these  covers 
that  they  be  only  simple,  veracious,  and  of 
passing  interest,  all  three  of  which  qualities 

[xvij 


Introduction 


are,  after  all,  but  the  prime  essentials  of 
the  gentleman-fisherman  who  hears  the  laugh 
of  the  waterfall  in  his  office  and  whose 
memory  stubbornly  reverts  to  darting  shad- 
ows in  a  deep,  dark  pool. 


[xviij 


The  Log  of  the  North 
Shore  Club 

CHAPTER  I 

CHASING   A   CAMP    SITE   AND   THE   LURE   OF   A 
PERAMBULATING  WATERFALL 

THE  offshore  breeze  brought  the  pungent 
odor  of  balsam  and  spruce  and  it  was 
sharp  with  the  cold  of  the  Northland.  We 
impressed  and  expectant  six  stood  upon  the 
bridge  of  the  /.  C.  Ford,  husky  little  pulp- 
wood  barge,  and  breathed  in  the  intoxicating 
exhalations  with  the  quivering  nostrils  of 
the  atavistic  man.  The  brilliant  stars  of 
the  north  country  lighted  the  night.  Over 
all  was  the  silence  of  the  wilderness. 

It  was  midnight,  yet  the  afterglow  of  the 
tardy  northern  sun  still  tinted  faintly  the 
hilltops.    Ahead,  maybe  two  miles,  maybe 
[i] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


ten  miles,  loomed  the  shadowy  silhouette  of 
land,  the  North  Shore  of  Lake  Superior. 

"Starboard  some,  Paddy,"  said  Captain 
Morrison,  down  through  the  trap  to  the 
wheelsman. 

Then  sounded  three  staccato  whistles, 
then  one  and  the  engines  stopped,  for  the 
first  time  since  we  left  Sault  Ste.  Marie, 
twenty-four  hours  before,  almost  to  the 
minute  by  the  engine-room  clock.  Diago- 
nally across  Lake  Superior  we  had  come. 

"Look  at  that  black  Titan  with  his  head 
aflame,"  said  Billy  awedly.  "It's  stu- 
pendous," said  Mac.  "The  grandeur  of  it 
is  actually  oppressive.  Where 's  Gepe? 
He  'd  rave  over  this. " 

"Say,"  came  Gepe's  voice  from  the  black- 
ness of  amidship,  "which  one  of  you  fellows 
took  the  corkscrew?" 

At  four  o'clock  that   afternoon,  when  we 

were  still  far  out  on  the  lake,  we  had  picked 

up  that  giant  peak.     It  towered,  we  knew, 

from  somewhere  in  the  centre  of  an  island 

[2] 


The  Portals  of  Play-Day 

wilderness,  known  to  the  chart,  the  navigator, 
and  the  lumberman  as  the  Island  of  St. 
Ignace,  the  second  largest  on  Lake  Su- 
perior. Lying  a  barrier  that  divides  the 
fury  of  the  great  lake  from  the  calm  of 
Nepigon  Bay,  it  stretches  its  massive  length 
of  inexorable  granite,  a  huge  rock  twenty- 
five  miles  long  and  six  miles  wide,  the  home 
of  moose  and  caribou,  a  place  of  almost 
theatric  beauty  and  rushing  brooks  and  leaf- 
canopied  pools  alive  with  trout,  lurking  in 
the  shadows. 

For  this  moment,  the  first  moment  of  a 
long  play-day,  we  had  dreamed  and  pondered 
and  conferred  with  the  delight  of  a  common 
anticipation  and  then  packed  and  forgotten 
things  and  locked  office-desks  and  travelled 
— almost  long  enough  to  cross  the  continent. 
This  was  the  Moment  and  on  the  bridge  we 
revelled  in  it  in  silence,  while  the  Ford  rolled 
upon  the  long,  majestic  swell  of  Lake  Superior. 

"I  don't  know  about  it,  boys,"  said  the 
Captain,  thoughtfully  lighting  his  wreck 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


of  a  briar.  The  inky  seas  raced  by  the  sides 
of  the  ship. 

"There's  quite  a  lump  of  a  sea  running 
in  there  and  with  your  duffel  your  boats  will 
be  down  to  the  gunwale." 

"You  can't  get  in  any  closer?"  ventured 
the  Camp  Boss. 

"There  's  a  hell  of  hungry  reefs  in  there," 
said  Captain  Morrison,  "and  besides,  its 
the  landing  in  the  surf  that  '11  swamp  you. 
I  can't  help  you  there.  I  'm  in  pretty  far 
now. " 

A  seventh  sea,  topping  its  contemporaries, 
irritably  slapped  the  Ford's  bows.  The 
Captain  spoke  with  more  determination 
then. 

"I  can  take  you  around  to  the  Blind 
Channel  to-night,  and,  if  there  's  no  sea,  you 
can  work  around  to  Duncan's  Cove  your- 
selves by  to-morrow  night — perhaps." 

"And  lose  a  day?"  thought  Gepe  aloud, 
for  he  had  but  thirty  days  to  fish. 

The  Camp  Boss  looked  around  at  the  face 
[4] 


The  Camp  Boss  Decides 

of  each  of  us  six  in  the  northern  starlight. 
Something  he  saw  there  seemed  to  reassure 
him. 

"We'll  take  a  chance  with  the  surf,  I 
guess,  Captain,"  said  the  Camp  Boss  quietly, 
for  the  Camp  Boss,  having  been  accustomed 
to  lead  and  make  decisions  for  somebody  since 
his  senior  college  year,  ten  years  ago,  always 
spoke  quietly,  and  the  firmer  his  resolve, 
the  more  quietly  he  expressed  it. 

"Good,"  said  the  Captain.  "I  knew 

d well  you  would,  but  I  wanted  you 

to  say  it." 

The  Captain  walked  to  the  rear  of  the 
bridge  and  shouted  into  the  depths  of  the 
dark  and  silent  ship: 

"Stand  by  there,  boys,  to  lower  away 
those  two  Mackinaws."  Over  the  rail  of 
the  Ford  they  toppled  our  two  eighteen-foot 
boats,  any  end  up,  painters  alone  fast  to 
stanchions,  down  into  the  inky,  ice-cold 
waters  of  Superior.  They  splashed  and 
filled  and  a  man  slipped  down  the  painter 
[5] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


and  bailed  them,  as  they  bobbed  upon  each 
wave,  leaping  for  an  instant  into  the  gleam 
of  the  ship's  lights  and  then  sinking  into 
the  abyss  again.  Then  came  to  the  rail 
for  the  lowering  suit-cases  and  dunnage- 
bags,  rod-cases  and  boxes  of  bacon  and  coffee 
and  sugar  and  tea  and  crates  of  eggs,  canned 
things  in  barrels;  for  we  were  tenderfeet 
then  and  knew  not  the  economy  of  packing 
and  the  peril  of  squandered  space  and  excoss 
weight. 

It  was  fast  work,  for  the  Captain  thought 
the  sea  from  off  the  lake  might  be  rising,  and 
it  was  delicate  work  to  lower  away  until  the 
man,  bobbing  around  down  there  in  the 
spray  and  darkness,  shouted  to  "hold"  or 
"let  go"  as  he  found  the  precise  centre  of 
his  mad  little  cork  of  a  craft. 

The  attempt  to  anticipate  one's  wants 
for  a  month  in  the  wilderness — to  foresee 
all  one's  comforts,  whims  for  a  month — is  an 
intellectual  achievement,  and  the  accumu- 
lation of  it — the  pile  of  it — for  six  men  makes 
[6] 


Michael,  Wilderness-Mentor 

a  shocking  spectacle  of  selfishness,  ignorance, 
and  dependence  upon  truly  sybaritic  luxury. 
Of  Gepe's  steamer-trunk  and  bedroom  slip- 
pers more  shall  be  said  anon. 

The  men  down  there  in  the  boats,  bobbing 
in  the  black  water  and  the  darkness,  were 
Michael  (pronounced  Michelle)  Cadotte  and 
his  son  Joe,  two  full-blooded  Chippewas 
of  the  Garden  River  reservation.  Michael 
thinks  he  must  be  eighty  years  old.  He  may 
be  a  hundred.  He  does  n't  know.  Nobody 
knows.  By  their  first  names  he  has  known 
generations  of  the  country's  distinguished 
lawyers,  doctors,  bankers,  supreme  justices, 
statesmen,  for  in  the  perfect  democracy 
of  the  wilderness  there  are  no  conventions, 
stiff  formality,  or  titles.  Michael  has  been 
guiding  and  packing  fishing  parties  along 
the  rugged  shores  of  Superior  and  up  its 
hundred  rivers  for  fifty  years.  He  knows 
every  likely  pool  and  every  moose  yard. 
He  is  the  patriarch  of  Lake  Superior  guides. 
His  teeth  and  memory  are  not  so  good  now. 
[7] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


His  hand  trembles,  too,  and  he  sleeps  between 
heavier  blankets.  His  children  and  grand- 
children and  great-grandchildren  have  em- 
braced the  religion  of  the  white  men  in  the 
little  missions  and  gaunt  meeting-houses  of 
the  shore  settlements.  But  Michael  still 
looks  with  veneration  upon  "Gee-sus" — 
the  morning  sun — as  it  rises  over  the  granite 
ridges  and  the  tumbling  waters  of  Superior. 
Michael  still  leaves  his  offerings  of  tobacco 
upon  the  rock  knees  of  Nan-i-bou-jou,  who 
sits  in  petrified  dignity,  flanked  by  faithful 
squaw,  daughter,  and  two  dogs,  at  that  point 
on  the  shore  which  the  imaginative  French 
voyageurs  first  saw  and  straightway  set  out 
to  puzzle  posterity  by  confusing  it  with 
Rabelais's  monster-man  and  called  it  Gar- 
gantua.  A  gentle  old  savage,  raconteur  of 
graphic  and  inexhaustible  memory,  and  a 
friend  of  great  heart  and  vast  loyalty  is 
Michael  Cadotte. 

When  Michael  and  Joe  had  grasped  all 
that  had  been  lowered  from  above  and  stowed 
[8] 


Nosie"  Protests 


it  away,  there  was  left  even  less  freeboard 
in  those  Mackinaws  than  Captain  Morrison, 
in  things  nautical  omniscient,  had  foreseen. 
The  last  article  of  excess  baggage  to  be 
lowered  away  into  the  depths  was  "Nosie," 
a  dutiful,  trustful,  and  exceedingly  gritty 
pointer-pup  who  thus  far  had,  not  illogically, 
utterly  failed  to  grasp  the  purposes  of  his 
bringing  and  the  potential  delights  of  the 
trip.  He  had  shivered  in  the  nipping  northern 
breezes  on  the  bridge,  learned  to  climb  a 
ladder  timidly  under  the  stress  of  a  craving 
for  human  society,  brawled  with  the  cook 
over  depredations  upon  the  ice-box,  and  had 
a  thoroughly  miserable  voyage,  unlightened 
by  any  discernible  future  promise  or  indi- 
cations of  a  guiding  intelligence.  Seized, 
bound  by  the  middle  with  a  galling  rope, 
flung  over  the  ship's  side  bodily  to  be  dropped, 
apparently,  to  bottomless  depths  without 
redress  or  explanation,  "Nosie"  abandoned 
himself  to  an  ecstacy  of  terror  and  his  screams 
shattered  the  cathedral-like  silence  of  the 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


northern  night.  "Nosie"  had  seen  no  boats 
lowered.  How  was  he  to  know  that  this 
was  friendly  expediency  and  not  blackest 
treachery?  Promptly  Joe  seized  him  and 
smothered  his  cries  and  struggles  beneath 
piles  of  warming  duffel  and  "Nosie"  was  still. 

Following  "Nosie"  down  that  rope,  man 
by  man,  we  shared  his  trepidation.  It  is 
not  cheering  to  cling  in  midair,  very  chill, 
black  air  at  that,  with  mountains  of  icy 
water  racing  beneath,  to  wait  until  a  boat 
conies  up  and  meets  one's  feet  and  two  sinewy 
Indian  arms  reach  out  and  drag  one  to  a 
very  small  dancing  spot  of  comparative 
safety. 

Last  to  come  over  the  side,  bringing  camera 
and  creel  and  all  of  Gepe's  tobacco  and  fly- 
books,  which  Gepe  had,  quite  character- 
istically, forgotten,  came  the  Camp  Boss, 
which  was  quite  proper  and  usual.  And  as 
he  twined  his  feet  about  the  rope  Captain 
Morrison  repeated  his  instructions. 

"I  figure,"  he  said,  "that  Duncan's  Cove 
[10] 


A  Respite  from  the  Cares  of  Authorship. 


Luxuries  Mourned 


is  just  about  dead-ahead  as  we  lie  now. 
Steer  by  the  easterly-most  star  of  the  Dipper, 
the  lower,  big  one  there,  and  I  don't  think 
you  can  miss  it.  I  '11  lay-to  here  until  I 
-see  you  wave  an  'all  right'  signal  with  the 
lantern.  Good  luck  to  you  and  if  they  won't 
rise  to  a  fly,  remember  the  muscallonge  in 
the  lake  three  miles  inland  and  keep  '  Nosie ' 
for  bait." 

I  remember  thinking,  when  the  Camp 
Boss  and  Joe  and  "Nosie"  and  I  pushed 
that  heavily-laden  Mackinaw  away  from 
the  sides  of  the  Ford,  how  fatuous  and  unfair 
and  unsportsmanly  had  been  the  thought, 
when  we  first  boarded  the  Ford,  that  she  was 
crude  in  her  appointments  and  lacking  in 
the  quasi-essential  luxuries.  Looking  up  at 
her  there  from  an  eighteen -foot  Mackinaw 
headed  into  an  unknown  primitive,  she 
looked  bigger  and  finer  and  more  homelike 
than  the  Mauretania,  a  lot  more. 

Once  out  of  the  wash  of  the  steamer  it 
was  n't  so  bad.  The  seas  were  long  and  low. 
[ii] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


So  deep  were  we  in  the  water,  though,  that 
rowing  was  tough.  Loaves  of  bread  and 
rolling  cans  of  bacon  make  neither  stable 
nor  satisfying  braces  for  one's  feet,  somehow. 
Low  moans  from  "Nosie's"  anguished  soul 
for  a  while  vied  with  the  slush  of  the  seas 
under  the  boat's  deep-laden  bows. 

There  wasn't  much  conversation.  Joe, 
being  an  Indian,  speaks  in  grunting  mono- 
syllables when  spoken  to,  and  in  a  situation 
like  this,  spiced  with  a  suggestion  of  danger, 
Joe  never  speaks  at  all.  He  took  short 
but  very  deep  and  powerful  strokes.  It  is 
hard  for  a  white  man  to  row  with  an  Indian. 
He  would  stop  every  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
and  drink  from  his  cupped  hand,  for  his 
mouth  was  dry.  Joe  was  anxious  to  get 
ashore. 

A  cloud  on  the  Superior  horizon  as  big 
as  a  pocket-handkerchief  will  drive  an  Indian 
ashore.  For  the  boisterous,  often  brutal 
and  terrifying  moods  of  Michabou  (or 
Nan-i-bou-jou),  the  "Great  Hare,"  the  Great 
[12] 


On  Dark  Waters  Adrift 

Spirit,  the  god  of  all  things,  the  Indians  have 
a  veneration  that  is  much  older  than  the 
Christian  era. 

To  row  silently,  interminably,  in  the  shadow 
of  the  northern  midnight  upon  a  strange  sea, 
toward  a  wild  shore  whose  forest-tipped 
cliffs  rise  dimly  in  the  darkness,  is  a  spooky 
experience.  There  is  an  unreality  about  it. 
The  silence,  the  vague  odors  of  the  woods, 
the  brilliant  northern  zenith,  the  rush  of 
the  stygian  water,  the  proximity  of  the 
unknown  suggest  such  thoughts  as,  material- 
ized and  given  concrete  expression,  gave  to 
the  world  the  weird  genius  of  Gustave  Dor£. 
Anyway,  it  galvanized  the  imaginations 
of  the  six  of  us,  but  two  days  away  from 
steel  office-buildings  and  the  table  d'h6te 
dinner  of  the  club. 

We  rowed  on,  to  us  it  may  have  seemed  an 
aeon  or  so.  Actually  it  was  about  an  hour. 
The  shadowed  shore  seemed  to  come  no 
nearer.  Curious,  we  thought,  that  trees 
and  bushes,  which  we  had  seen  easily  five 
[13] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


miles  out  in  the  lake,  were  now  no  larger. 
Then  we  knew.  They  were  not  merely 
trees.  The  silhouette  was  the  granite  wall 
of  the  lake  shore,  cliffs  that  leap  stark  from 
the  water.  Some  are  twenty-five  feet,  some 
a  hundred  feet.  The  map  does  n't  show  that 
Superior  is  a  vast  bath-tub,  with  towering 
Laurentian  granite  substituted  for  immacu- 
late domestic  porcelain. 

"Can  you  see  the  lights  of  the  other  boat?" 
The  Camp  Boss's  voice  shattered  the  brood- 
ing silence  to  infinitesimal  bits.  Frankly, 
I  could  n't.  Joe  could.  An  Indian  can  see 
smoke  where  to  the  white  man  there  is 
nothing  and  hear  sounds  for  which  nature 
has  trained  his  tympanum  alone  for  cen- 
turies to  abnormal  sensitiveness. 

"They're  away  from  Ford,"  said  Joe. 
"Maybe  two  miles,  but  driftin'  sou.  They 
no  see  us." 

"Show  them  our  lantern,"  said  the  Camp 
Boss.  I  quickly,  and  I  thought  accurately, 
judged  that  the  emergency  called  precisely 
[14] 


Midnight  Greetings 


for  the  "all  right"  signal.  I  waved  the 
lantern  as  I  had  seen  railroad  men  and 
surveyors  convey  that  same  satisfying  in- 
telligence. Results  were  prompt  and  emi- 
nently convincing. 

Captain  Morrison,  by  no  means  illogi- 
cally,  concluded  that  that  "all  right"  signal 
had  come  from  the  beach;  that  we  had 
safely  ridden  the  surf  and  landed  upon  a 
tolerant ,  if  not  hospitable  shore.  Three  hoarse 
whistles  ripped  to  shreds  the  silence  of  the 
sleeping  wilderness.  Bedlam,  piercing  and 
disturbing,  broke  loose  far  to  the  right  in 
the  darkness.  A  vast  colony  of  gulls  on 
some  wave-worn  rock  had  been  disturbed 
from  their  slumbers  and  shriekingly  resented 
the  intrusion.  It  was  the  crowning  touch 
to  the  illusion  of  the  unknown  and  the 
absurdly  unreal. 

"She's  putting  out  into  the  lake,"  said 
the  Camp  Boss.  "But  we  can't  be  far  off- 
shore now." 

It  was  an  accurate  prognosis.  Green  light 
[15] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


swung  to  port.  Red  light  disappeared.  The 
light  on  foremast  described  an  arc.  Lights 
of  cabin  astern  then  came  into  view.  The 
old  Ford,  comfortable  in  the  fancied  assurance 
that  she  had  put  six  tenderfeet  safely  ashore 
where  the  worst  they  could  do  to  themselves 
was  to  hook  trout-flies  in  one  another's 
ears  or  overeat,  turned  majestically  and 
steamed  out  into  Lake  Superior  to  resume 
the  sordid  but  serious  business  of  feeding 
pulp-wood  to  newspapers  and  giving  "pub- 
lic opinion"  a  medium  of  sensational  ex- 
pression. 

"There  goes  the  tail  of  civilization,"  said 
the  Camp  Boss. 

"Where's  dat?"  and  Joe  peered  about 
apprehensively.  "Nosie"  burst  forth  with 
an  agony  of  hysterical  repining.  It  is 
"Nosie,"  anyway,  who  should  have  written 
the  intimate  chronicles  of  this  trip. 

"Hear  water,"  said  Joe.  "Maybe  water- 
fall." 

"It 's  Duncan's  Cove  then,"  said  the  Boss 
[16] 


A  Too-Literal  Landing 

with  unmistakable  elation  in  his  voice.  "The 
little  river  empties  in  there  and  there  's  quite 
a  waterfall.  It  seems  to  be  over  there  to  the 
right,  now." 

It  was  "over  to  the  right."  It  kept 
moving  to  the  right,  too.  Phenomena  of 
floating  islands  obtruded  themselves  upon 
my  boyhood  memories,  but  among  them  was 
absolutely  no  precedent  for  a  perambulating 
waterfall,  bent  upon  nocturnal  depredations 
and  cunningly  scheming  to  lure  the  unso- 
phisticated voyager  to  his  doom.  We  chased 
that  waterfall  in  an  arc  of  forty-five  degrees. 
It  ran  along  the  shore,  always  to  the  right, 
always  singing  alluringly,  ever  louder,  and 
we  chased  it,  always  pressing  to  starboard, 
and  tried  to  head  it  off. 

Then  the  North  Shore  sprang  out  on  us, 
frowning  precipices,  with  balsams  and  spruces 
hanging  dizzily  over  the  abyss.  The  surf 
was  hurling  itself  against  the  sheer  wall  of 
rock,  swirling  over  reefs  yellow-fanged,  and 
the  echo  was  flung  back  and  out  over  the 
[17] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


vast    reaches    of    Superior.     This    was    our 
fugitive  waterfall. 

"Back  water,  hard!"  shouted  the  Camp 
Boss.  Tins  of  bacon,  rod-cases,  suit-cases 
gravitated  forward  upon  "Nosie"  as  Joe 
and  I  buried  the  oars  in  the  choppy  back- 
wash and  backed  the  top-heavy  Mackinaw 
out  of  the  gaping  jaws. 

"A  beach  over  there,"  muttered  Joe.  To 
starboard  again,  beneath  the  black  shadow 
of  the  cliffs,  we  rowed,  the  surf  booming 
furiously  at  the  ends  of  our  oars.  It  was 
taking  gross  and  wide  liberties  with  one's 
long-established  conception  of  a  beach  when 
we  found  it.  It  was  not  sandy  and  gentle 
and  hospitable.  It  was  a  shelving  shore  of 
pebbles,  wonderfully  uniform  in  shape,  quite 
round,  worn  by  an  eternity  of  storms,  and  in 
size  the  diameter  of  an  adult  human  skull. 
That  is  the  kind  of  beaches  that  Superior 
makes.  Everything  is  done  upon  a  scale 
so  heroic  that  it  terrifies. 

"Can  we  land,  Joe?"  asked  the  Camp  Boss. 
[i  8] 


Mingling  with  the  Environment 

"We  must,"  said  Joe  with  his  usual  scorn 
of  mental  reservations  and  hypothetical 
conditions. 

And  we  did.  We  accumulated  what  head- 
way we  could.  The  Boss  selected  a  place, 
ghostly  white  in  the  pale  starlight,  where 
the  "pebbles"  looked  smoothest  and  most 
yielding.  The  combers  behind  us  co-operated 
with  suspicious  cordiality.  They  picked  us 
up  and  we  started  shoreward  in  long,  in- 
toxicating bounds.  There  was  a  grating 
noise  beneath  the  bow.  "Now!"  said  Joe, 
and  he  went  over  one  side  and  I  went  over 
the  other.  Purpose,  breath,  my  very  ego 
were  gone  by  the  time  my  feet  struck  the 
uneven  bottom.  I  was  in  waist-deep.  The 
cold  of  Superior  water  is  quite  unbelievable. 
It  varies  less  than  five  degrees  the  year 
round. 

"Lift!"  shouted  Joe.     The  next  roller  was 

not  an  enemy  but  an  ally.    We  three,  Joe,  the 

roller,  and  I,  heaved  together  and  mightily. 

Five  feet  out  on  the  "pebbles"  lunged  the 

[19] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


Mackinaw.  We  hoped  to  do  better.  Another 
such  comber  would  swamp  us.  Flour,  tea, 
coffee,  clothing,  blankets  would  go  down 
with  the  flood.  Without  prologue  or  preface 
Joe  began  unloading.  He  filled  the  air  with 
nondescript  camping  outfits  and  assorted 
groceries.  "Nosie"  was  swept  up  in  the 
vortex  and  joined  the  aerial  excursion  of 
articles,  describing  the  same  graceful  para- 
bolic curve.  They  all  landed  in  a  neat  little 
pile  about  twenty  feet  up  the  beach.  I  have 
never  seen  firemen,  customs  officers,  or  baggage 
smashers  show  ambition  so  laudable  or  form 
so  flawless.  I  recall  dimly  in  the  transmea- 
tion  of  seeing  "Nosie"  trajected  with  a 
broiler  and  a  diaphanous  head-net  snared 
in  his  chain  and  imparting  both  dignity  and 
accuracy  to  his  flight.  When  the  boat  was 
sufficiently  jettisoned,  we  caught  her  and  on 
those  round  stones  she  shot  up  the  beach, 
well  beyond  the  reach  of  that  snarling  surf. 
So  deeply  absorbed  were  we  in  the  pressing 
work  of  saving  duffel  and  rods  and  "eats"' 
[20] 


A  Rift  and  Some  Shelter  in  the  Shore  Rocks. 


Catastrophe  or  Quadrille? 

from  the  hungry  waters  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque perpetual  ice-cooler  in  the  world,  that 
the  light  of  the  second  boat  escaped  us. 
Also,  the  boom  of  the  surf  drowned  her  crew's 
shouts  of  inquiry,  at  first  eager,  then,  not 
unnaturally,  irritable,  even  impatient.  With 
their  oars  they  were  holding  their  boat  with 
difficulty  just  beyond  the  clutch  of  the 
combers  and  watching  our  three  forms  dart 
about  upon  excursions,  apparently,  of  frivolity 
and  sheer  light-heartedness.  At  last  Gepe's 
stentorian  voice  bridged  the  turmoil  of  the 
waters: 

"  Say,  what  are  you  doing  in  there — dancing 
a  quadrille  or  laying  carpets?"  »We  gave 
them  minute  instructions,  laying  particular 
stress  upon  possible  improvements  over  our 
own  recent  methods  and  achievements. 

"It  all  sounds  very  simple  and  attractive," 
shouted  Billy,  "except  that  jumping  over- 
board business." 

"  We  '11  cut  that  out, "  added  Gepe.  "Let 
her  go." 

[21] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


Their  coming  was  really  dramatic,  so  full 
of  determination  and  courage  and  confidence 
in  our  counsel.  We  took  the  lantern  and 
lined  up,  four  of  us,  Camp  Boss,  Joe,  "  Nosie," 
and  I,  on  the  beach  to  welcome  them  to  the 
vibrant  wilderness.  Gepe  stood  gracefully 
poised  in  the  prow,  one  foot  on  the  gunwale, 
lantern  raised  high.  Washington,  Father 
Marquette,  Columbus,  snapped  under  similar 
circumstances,  had  obviously  impressed  their 
poses  upon  Gepe.  His  boat  had  two  more 
men  and  much  more  duffel  and  bacon  and 
Scotch  whiskey  than  ours.  So  it  was  much 
heavier.  It  had  more  momentum  and,  with 
greater  draught,  struck  the  bottom  sooner. 
Also  it  seemed  to  strike  the  bottom  harder 
and  stop  more  abruptly.  Prompt  and  im- 
plicit obedience  to  physical  laws  was  to  Gepe 
religion.  As  fell  from  the  heavens  the  proud 
Lucifer,  so  lantern  and  Gepe  arose  splendidly 
from  the  bow,  soared,  turned  their  zenith, 
and  plunged  theatrically  into  Lake  Superior 
at  our  very  feet.  To  the  platitude  that 
[22] 


On  the  Shore,  Anyway 

"opportunity  makes  the  man"  I  have  been 
little  attracted.  This,  however,  was  posi- 
tively Gepe's  first  contact  with  wilderness 
exigencies  and  Lake  Superior  water  and  the 
manner  in  which  his  descriptive  vocabulary, 
in  the  elasticity  of  which  we  had  ever  had 
the  greatest  confidence,  arose  to  the  occasion 
marked  him  as  a  man  of  versatility  and  re- 
source. It  was  thrilling,  splendid. 

"The  first  wireless  message,"  said  the 
Camp  Boss,  as  we  salvaged  Gepe.  The  boat, 
lightened  of  the  onus  of  the  picturesque  and 
propelled  by  four  oars  that  were  vivaciously 
deluging  the  steersman,  was  caught  by  the 
next  comber.  We  met  her  half-way.  The 
aerial  transit  scene  was  re-enacted.  Caught 
in  the  first  shower  of  unyielding,  winging 
cooking  utensils,  Gepe  retired  out  of  range 
to  prance  about  and  facilitate  the  return  of 
his  circulation. 

With  the  light  of  the  lantern  and  the 
myriad  of  highly  entertained  stars  we  took 
inventory  of  party  and  outfit.  Gepe,  wetly 
[23] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


demonstrative;  Bill,  satirically  sympathetic 
and  looking  for  a  dry  cigarette;  Marv.,  the 
scientist,  studying  the  constellations  to  locate 
Duncan's  Cove;  Mac,  frantically  upturning 
a  chaos  of  duffel  for  his  beloved  Leonard  rod ; 
Michael  and  Joe,  Indian-like,  looking  for 
firewood  on  the  heels  of  a  cataclysm;  Camp 
Boss,  as  usual,  anxious  only  for  the  safety 
of  the  outfit  and  the  comfort  of  each;  and  I, 
still  stunned  by  the  first  breath  of  adventure 
and  the  first  meeting  with  the  forces  of  wild 
nature  that  had  ever  come  into  an  orderly 
and  flawlessly  prosaic  city  life — we  were  all 
there — and  were  ashore,  which  was  a  great 
deal. 

To  an  Indian  a  fire  is  the  beginning  and 
end  of  all  things.  He  sees  in  it,  not  only  his 
bodily  comfort,  but  his  courage,  his  spiritual 
content — his  Nan-i-bou-jou.  Michael  and 
Joe  had  a  fire  snapping  before  the  air  was  well 
cleared  of  imprecations,  flying  duffel,  and 
anxious  interrogation.  The  Indian  before 
the  white  man  came  knew  the  comforts  and 
[24] 


Magic  Colors  in  the  East 

joys  of  the  fire.  The  white  man  takes  to  it 
with  an  amity  and  avidity  that  give  evolu- 
tion a  fresh  clue  to  the  atavistic  man. 

That  fire  brought  to  us  the  romance,  the 
charm,  the  humor  of  the  incident  and  our 
current  predicament.  We  rimmed  it  round, 
turning  first  one  side  and  then  another. 
We  found  that  we  could  smoke  and  enjoy 
it.  We  found  corkscrew  and  needful  stimu- 
lant. We  found  that  dry  clothes  were  actu- 
ally procurable  in  that  mound  of  duffel.  We 
found  our  blankets — dry — heaven  for  such 
bounty  be  thanked! 

It  was  two  o'clock  by  Billy's  infallible 
timepiece  when  order  had  quite  come  out 
of  chaos  and  the  tranquillity  of  civilization 
settled  down  again  upon  this  strange  night 
scene  in  the  wilderness. 

The  surf  had  ceased  to  boom  so  defiantly. 
The  night  was  far  spent.  Indeed,  the  east 
was  beginning  to  show  magic  colors.  In 
the  thickets  somewhere  the  heartsore  little 
"Canada  bird"  was  voicing  its  eternal  grief 
[25] 


Chasing  a  Camp  Site 


in  those  four  weird  little  minor  notes.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  new  day — yes,  thirty 
new  days,  vacation  days,  days  of  fishing, 
exploring,  conjecturing,  maybe  a  little  inno- 
cent dreaming  of  ambitions  unattained  and 
achievements  and  fame  to  come;  days  of 
most  intimate  confidence,  perfect  democracy, 
and  purest  and  least  selfish  brotherhood — 
the  brotherhood  of  the  wilderness — where 
vanity  and  selfishness  stand  out  as  gaunt 
and  chilling  as  the  skeleton  of  the  fire-scourged 
pine.  Vacation  days!  Oh,  the  lure  of  them, 
the  delight  of  their  anticipation,  the  joys  of 
their  realization,  and  the  sweet  sanctity  of 
their  memory! 

"The  last  man  in  bed  puts  out  the  light," 
said  Billy  and  he  rolled  into  his  blankets 
upon  the  stones.  Then  we  slept  beneath 
the  stars  for  the  first  time  and  a  loon  laughed 
maniacally  far  out  on  the  lake — and  dawn 
awakened  us  to  look  upon  the  wilderness — 
also  for  the  first  time — and  life  and  youth 
and  nature  and  God  seemed  very  good. 
[26] 


CHAPTER  II 

DISCOVERIES,  DAY-DREAMS,  AND  MENDACITY 
AT  DUNCAN'S  COVE 

THE  glare  in  our  eyes  of  the  morning  sun, 
reflected  upon  the  mirror-surface  of 
Lake  Superior,  in  aff ablest  mood,  awakened 
us.  It  is  a  curious  and  bewildering  sensa- 
tion, two  days  from  civilization,  to  awaken 
at  four  o'clock  upon  a  wilderness-shore.  A 
gull  overhead  scanned  us  and  screamed 
frank  disapproval.  On  one  side  the  dazzling 
waters  of  the  lake  lost  themselves  in  a  cloud- 
less horizon,  a  clean  stretch  to  the  South 
Shore,  250  miles  away.  Fog,  blown  in  from 
the  lake,  was  crowning  the  tree-tops  of  the 
islands.  On  the  other  side  there  arose  the 
bank,  clad  with  osier,  spruce,  and  balsam, 
and  capped  with  pine  and  the  dainty  birch, 
"the  white  lady  of  the  wood."  To  retrace 
and  relive  in  two  seconds  the  events  of  two 
[27] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


days  is  a  severe  mental  effort.  The  vibrant, 
glorious  Present  arose  and  smote  me  squarely 
between  the  eyes,  when,  rising  in  my  blanket, 
I  saw  that  hideous  mound  of  assorted  duffel 
and  caught  the  vagrant  bouquet  of  coffee 
upon  the  nipping  lake  airs.  Michael  and 
Joe,  of  course,  were  exchanging  intimate 
Chippewa  confidences  over  the  inevitable 
fire.  Eggs  and  bacon  spluttered.  The  com- 
missary was  organizing.  Gepe's  head  emerged 
from  a  nimbus  of  blankets  where  his  feet 
supposititiously  were.  The  morning  toilet 
was  rudimentary.  The  hapless  "Nosie," 
looking  upon  the  fire  as  the  first  symptom 
of  returning  intelligence  in  his  gods,  hugged 
it  shiveringly. 

Then  the  voice  of  the  Camp  Boss  hailed  us. 
Around  a  rocky  promontory  he  pulled  a  boat. 
The  sun  had  found  him  awake  and  prepared, 
alone,  to  scout  the  shore-line  for  Duncan's 
Cove.  He  had  found  it,  too,  as  we  should 
have  found  it,  had  that  siren  "waterfall" 
not  lured  us  from  the  Captain's  explicit 
[28] 


•I 


At  Last — Duncan's  Cove! 


'They  're  Rising,  Right  in  Front  of  Camp!" 


Duncan's  Cove  Upside  Down 

course.  Tin  dishes  are  very  good  in  the 
wilderness,  but  stone-china,  retaining  its 
heat  longer,  is  better — though  heavier  and 
that  in  camping  is  of  vital  importance. 

A  light  breeze  was  ruffling  the  lake  when 
we  had  breakfasted  and  reloaded  the  boats. 
They  were  loaded  to  the  gunwales,  too, 
but  there  was  as  yet  no  sea  and  we  spread 
the  sails  and  bowled  down  the  lowering, 
inexorable  shore.  Two  miles  and  there 
opened  up  an  indentation  much  the  shape 
of  the  hand.  Lake  Superior  delights  in 
running  her  fingers  into  the  shore-line. 
Duncan's  Cove  is  at  the  extreme  tip  of  the 
middle-finger.  Superior  was  already  working 
up  her  regular  noonday  temper,  but,  when 
we  swung  into  the  cove,  there  was  no  ripple 
to  mar  the  perfect  reflection  of  rocks  and 
trees  and  rugged  hillside.  The  silent  scene 
was  reproduced  perfectly  upside  down. 

It  is  snappy  work  and  hilarious  work  to 
unload  boats  for  that  first  camp  in  the 
wilderness — and  hurl  duffel,  bread,  canned 
[29] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


things,  rods,  cameras,  lanterns  from  hand 
to  hand,  until  the  man  up  the  bank,  of 
course  Gepe,  is  deluged,  smothered,  and 
shouts  for  a  coadjutor. 

There  is  a  rare  camping  spot  at  Duncan's 
Cove.  There  is  an  ice-cold  spring  for  butter 
— if  you  have  it.  There  are  tiny  trout,  too, 
in  that  spring.  Few  can  have  live  trout 
in  the  refrigerator.  There  is  a  flat  surface 
for  the  tents  and  hills  tower  on  two  sides, 
giving  protection  from  the  lake  gales.  There 
is  a  wealth  of  driftwood  on  the  beach  for 
your  fire  and  balsam  near  by  for  your  in- 
comparable bed  of  boughs. 

Camp  was  made  with  significant  alacrity 
that  morning.  The  bags  and  carpet-rolls 
were  opened  and  blankets  draped  upon  the 
bushes  for  airing  and  drying. 

Then  the  realization  of  the  dreams  of 
weeks,  nay  months!  Out  came  books  of 
flies,  "  leader  "-boxes,  silken  lines,  and  intricate 
reels  of  fabulous  price.  Oh,  the  guile  and 
eloquence  of  the  sporting-goods  dealer  and 
[30] 


PQ 


PQ 


The  Little  Brown  Hackle 

his  insidious  catalogue!  The  law  should 
protect  helplessly  impressionable  fishermen 
from  the  deadly  lure  of  that  illustrated 
catalogue.  Trout-rods,  perfunctory  ones  and 
priceless  ones,  were  put  together  with  trem- 
bling fingers.  There  was  much  discussion 
of  the  gastronomic  tastes  and  epicurean 
whims  of  Superior  trout,  whether  it  should 
be  lake  flies  or  stream  flies,  Parmachenee 
Belle  or  Professor  or  Montreal  or  Silver 
Doctor  or  Coachman  or  the  inornate  but 
strangely  reliable  little  Brown  Hackle. 

We  found  the  little  river  quickly — scarcely 
a  half-mile  from  camp.  It  was  but  a  large 
and  self-important  sort  of  a  brook,  anyway. 
It  came  roaring  out  of  an  arch  of  birch  and 
spruce  and  osier  bushes,  leaving  the  black 
shadows,  and  then,  hurdling  the  beach,  gushed 
out  arrogantly  into  Superior.  Where  the 
gushing  was  going  on,  the  Camp  Boss  was 
the  first  to  cast.  His  three  flies  swished  from 
the  back-cast,  perilously  close  to  the  waiting 
bushes,  and  settled  lightly  in  the  laughing 
[31] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


ripple.  We  had  n't  long  to  wait.  A  white 
little  stomach  shot  out  of  the  water  for  the 
dropper-fly.  The  Boss  struck  and  his  line 
started  for  the  far  shore.  Bill,  in  the  torrent 
waist-deep,  netted  them,  two  of  them,  after 
ten  minutes  full  of  fight.  Three  trout  on 
three  flies  are  not  infrequent  in  these  far- 
away streams.  Perhaps  the  spectacle  of  a 
brother  -  trout,  apparently  chasing  tempting 
entries  that  seem  to  elude  him,  is  irresistible. 
The  Boss,  Gepe,  and  Mac  whipped  the 
shore  about  the  brook-mouth.  The  rest 
of  us  pushed  through  the  thickets  for  the 
brook's  pools.  At  last  we  came  upon  a 
moose-trail,  a  boulevard  paralleling  the 
brook's  sinuous  length.  O!  the  delight  of 
hunting  pools  on  an  unknown  trout-stream! 
I  remember  one  particularly.  The  moose- 
trail  led  up  to  and  over  a  great  black  boulder. 
When  we  reached  the  top,  we  saw  that  the 
boulder  bathed  its  feet  in  a  shadowy  pool, 
in  diameter  perhaps  forty  feet.  The  sun, 
peeping  through  the  interstices  of  branches, 
[32] 


They  Were  There 


made  golden  mosaics  upon  its  surface.  I 
crept  up  and  looked  down  into  the  depths. 
THEY  were  there!  Very  cautiously  a  rod 
was  drawn  up.  The  flies  were  cautiously 
lowered.  When  they  touched  the  water, 
trout  seemed  to  rush  from  all  directions  at 
once.  They  leaped  a  foot  clear  of  the  water. 
They  hooked  themselves.  Then  the  problem 
of  raising  two  pounds  or  so  of  fighting  trout 
up  a  ten-foot  wall  on  a  five-ounce  rod!  There 
was  no  possible  way  to  net  them.  We  caught 
some  and  we  lost  many. 

The  Duncan's  Cove  brook  is  scarcely  a 
half-mile  long.  Then  it  finds  a  reedy  marsh 
and  loses  itself  in  it.  But  there  are  two 
good  pools  and  innumerable  little  pockets 
and  alcoves,  each  with  a  good  trout  lurking 
and  hungry  always.  One  pool  has  a  four- 
foot  waterfall.  It  is  deep  and  dark  and 
the  water  dashes  excitedly  about  its  rocky 
sides  like  a  bad-tempered  little  maelstrom. 
There  is  a  clearing  there  that  makes  casting 
possible.  Billy  lost  his  heart  to  this  pool. 
3  [33] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


The  Camp  Boss  said  it  was  recrudescence 
of  the  egotistic  Narcissus  and  the  resistless 
reflection.  Billy  fell  into  that  pool  twice 
and  made  the  grand  tour  each  time  with  the 
current,  applauded  by  a  cheering  gallery, 
before  he  found  his  feet  on  the  stony  bottom. 
Maybe  it  was  that  intimacy  that  wrought  his 
enchantment.  I  do  not  think  that  a  score 
of  gentleman-wanderers  have  ever  fished 
that  beloved  little  brook  at  Duncan's  Cove. 
Nature  was  in  a  tender  mood  when  that 
brook  was  born. 

We  dined  on  our  first  trout  that  night  and 
most  luxuriously,  and  before  we  dined  the 
thermometer,  dangling  from  its  birch  tree, 
as  no  thermometer  doubtless  ever  dangled 
before,  performed  some  astounding  gym- 
nastics. The  day  had  been  warm  and  in 
the  thickets  the  black  flies  were  solicitous, 
particularly  to  Gepe,  who  coated  himself 
lavishly  with  the  odoriferous  "Lallakapop" 
and  called  upon  heaven  to  witness  his  un- 
merited tribulations.  The  thermometer  at 
[34] 


Thermic  Gymnastics 


6.30  P.M.  registered  70  degrees.  The  instant 
the  sun  dropped  behind  the  high  hills,  that 
vast  and  self-replenishing  refrigerator,  Lake 
Superior,  asserted  its  resistless  will.  Down, 
down  went  the  mercury.  In  35  minutes  it 
fell  29  degrees  and  stopped  to  catch  its 
breath  for  a  moment  at  41.  We  were  per- 
spiring at  6.30  P.M. — at  7.30  we  were  looking 
for  a  second  sweater  and  huddling  about  a 
roaring  camp-fire  of  dry  pine  logs.  The  after- 
glow was  still  flashing  a  false  sunset  at  10.30 
when  we  turned  in.  The  northern  heavens 
are  indescribably  brilliant.  Preparing  for 
bed  on  the  lake  shore  generally  consists  of 
removing  one's  boots,  belt,  and  eye-glasses, 
if  one  wears  them,  and  borrowing  what 
clothes  one's  tent-mate  professes  not  to  need. 
We  heard  a  cow  moose,  far  off  in  the  tangled 
thickets  of  the  island,  calling  her  forest- 
suitor  before  we  reluctantly  left  the  fire. 
Then  a  tin  cup  of  amazingly  cold  water,  one 
more  look  at  the  myriad  stars,  one  more 
message  from  a  loon,  laughing  idiotically 
[35] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


far  out  on  the  lake,  and1  then  the  profound, 
dreamless  slumber  of  the  wilderness. 

I  protest  that  personally  I  had  no  hand 
in  the  outrage  whatever.  Billy  and  Mac 
were  up  early.  They  had  bathed  hurriedly 
and  in  relays;  I  mean  each  in  a  relay.  The 
part  of  the  body  that  is  submerged  in  Superior 
one  minute  grows  numb  with  the  exquisite 
pain  of  it.  Billy  and  Mac  merely  splashed 
themselves.  I  heard  what  each  one  said 
to  himself  while  he  was  thus  splashing.  It 
was,  as  I  remember  it,  very  earnest  and  fervid 
sort  of  monologue,  too,  rich  with  spontaneous 
observations  and  scriptural  references.  All 
this  was  before  breakfast,  of  course.  Gepe 
slept  soundly  through  the  uproar  of  the  bath. 
When  he  poked  his  head  out  of  his  tent 
Billy  and  Mac  were  wrapped  in  bath-towels 
on  the  beach  and  engaged  largely  in  the 
serious  business  of  restoring  circulation. 
Naturally,  Gepe  asked  the  superfluous  ques- 
tion— the  situation  was  ripe  for  it — and 
wanted  to  know  what  Billy  and  Mac  had  been 
[36] 


The  Age-Defying  Conspiracy 

doing.  They  might  easily  and  veraciously 
have  answered  that  they  had  been  leading 
a  cotillion  or  buying  a  touring-car.  But  they 
did  n't.  They  wilfully  and  viciously  de- 
ceived Gepe.  Billy  said:  "We've  been 
swimming  out  in  the  lake."  It's  difficult 
to  convey  an  accurate  idea  of  the  craft  in 
that  retort  of  Billy's.  Gepe  fell.  "Isn't 
it  cold?  "  he  questioned  half-heartedly.  "  Oh, 
maybe  it  is  out  in  the  lake,  away  out," 
admitted  Billy  airily,  "but  in  this  shallow 
cove  here — why,  it 's  almost  too  warm. 
Isn't  it,  Mac?"  "Yes,"  said  Mac  through 
chattering  teeth — "why,  it 's  hardly  any  fun 
to  swim  in  such  hot  water.  It 's  almost 
enervating." 

"Sounds  pretty  good  to  me,"  said  Gepe, 
and  he  emerged  from  his  tent,  whistling,  with 
towel  on  arm  and  soap  in  hand — and  nothing 
else. 

They  showed  him  a  log — on  which  he 
could  "walk  out  to  deep  water  and  dive." 
At  the  end  of  the  log,  Gepe,  more  perfunc- 
[37] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


torily  than  anything  else,  a  survival  of  boy- 
hood tradition  at  the  swimming-hole,  stuck 
two  toes  into  the  flood.  He  stopped  whistling. 
He  turned  and  looked  over  his  shoulder. 
Black  suspicion,  misgiving,  terror  were  in 
that  look.  Gently  they  began  to  roll  the 
log.  First,  Gepe  stormed  and  threatened. 
Then  he  begged,  oh,  so  piteously!  Then 
he  sprang  lightly  into  air  and  disappeared. 
And  Michael  met  him  at  the  beach,  with 
Gepe's  own  flask. 

There  is  here  introduced  a  new  member  of 
the  party.  It  may  seem  an  abrupt  sort  of 
an  introduction,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
member  figures  prominently  in  subsequent 
events.  Indeed,  had  it  not  been  for  this 
member,  these  chronicles  would  not  be,  which 
may  or  may  not  be  construed  as  a  grateful 
apodosis.  The  name  of  the  new  member  is 
Wagush,  which  in  pure  Chippewa  is ' '  The  Fox, ' ' 
and  Wagush  is  a  wonderfully  conscientious  eigh- 
teen-foot gasoline  launch  of  hallowed  memory. 
The  Wagush,  too,  came  up  to  us  on  the  little 
[38] 


Enter  Wagush  Explosively 

pulp-steamer,  /.  C.  Ford.  She  took  joyously 
to  the  wilderness,  though  the  confidence 
with  which  she  shattered  the  sacred  silences 
with  her  staccato  explosions,  for  a  while 
put  our  teeth  on  edge.  We  could  not  have 
gone  without  the  Wagush. 

With  her  we  found  rivers  Number  One, 
Two,  and  Three  and  Squaw  Harbor  and 
Pappoose  Bay  and  Otter  Cove  and  the  won- 
derful reef  fishing  off  Richardson's  Island 
and  Caulkins's  Beach.  It  meant  circum- 
navigating St.  Ignace  Island,  a  two  days' 
trip,  to  meet  the  Ford  at  ''Headquarters," 
the  lumber  camp  and  loading  station.  But 
Wagush  was  indeed  worth  it.  Our  radius 
of  operation  was  increased  from  about  three 
to  fifteen  miles,  without  moving  our  per- 
manent camp  at  Duncan's  Cove. 

We  had  heard  of  the  reef  fishing  and  the 
source  of  the  information  was  spontaneous 
and  picturesque.  I  once  wrote  a  newspaper 
article  about  St.  Ignace  Island.  I  had 
interviewed  a  man  who  "looked  timber" 
[391 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


there.  It  appealed  to  me.  He  told  me 
about  a  great  lake  in  the  depths  of  the 
island,  "alive  with  trout  and  muscallonge, " 
possibly  whales  and  ichthyosauri.  As  I  re- 
member, I  had  that  lake  rather  thoroughly 
congested.  Nobody  but  this  mendacious 
"timber-looker"  had  ever  seen  that  lake, 
he  said.  What  he  didn't  know  about  that 
lake  I  did,  when  I  got  well  into  the  produc- 
tion of  the  interview.  A  dear  old  gentleman- 
fisherman  down  in  Ohio  read  that  interview. 
Evidently,  he  saw  symptoms  that  convinced 
him  that  I  might  yet  be  saved.  He  had 
fished  and  hunted  St.  Ignace  and  began  his 
enchantment  in  1884  when  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Railroad  was  in  the  building  along 
the  North  Shore.  He  spoke  to  me  kindly, 
but  convincingly  and  at  length.  He  heaped 
coals  of  fire  upon  my  irresponsible  head  by 
sending  me  charts  of  St.  Ignace  and  its 
littoral  nicely  marked  in  red-ink  to  locate 
the  wonderful  reef  fishing.  We  have  drunk 
healths  to  his  charity  and  sportsmanly 
[40] 


A  Toy  Archipelago 


generosity  and  read  prayers  for  his  beatifi- 
cation. For  we  found  his  reefs  and  the  trout 
which  he  had  somehow  overlooked. 

In  Wagush  and  one  Mackinaw  boat  in  tow 
we  started  before  Superior  had  developed 
the  daily  tantrum.  We  had  frying-pan,  tea- 
pot, bread,  camera,  and  fishing-tackle.  St. 
Ignace  is  the  granite  centrepiece  of  an 
archipelago.  There  are  hundreds  of  islands, 
varying  in  size  from  mere  gull-rocks,  half- 
submerged  reefs,  to  Wilson,  Simpson,  Salter, 
and  Richardson's,  scarcely  less  imposing 
than  St.  Ignace,  their  big  taciturn  sister. 
Through  wonderful  little  channels,  opening 
up  surprisingly  where,  a  moment  before, 
only  the  shore  seemed  to  be;  across  silent 
enchanted  bays  and  bayous;  past  deceptive 
alcoves  in  the  shore  that  looked  like  river- 
mouths  and  were  not,  we  skimmed  that 
silvery  morning. 

Once  we  turned  a  rocky  point  suddenly  and 
surprised  a  mother  duck  and  her  furry  little 
brood  not  yet  able  to  fly.  The  mother 
[41] 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


scorned  to  seek  the  safety  of  her  wings  in 
the  face  of  this  hideous  coughing  peril  and 
they  tore  away  with  astonishing  speed  over 
the  surface  of  the  water,  a  screen  of  whitest 
foam  upon  a  field  of  green.  We  must  have 
left  that  demoralized  brood  with  conversa- 
tional material  for  all  indigenous  fish-ducks' 
posterity. 

Many  times  we  ran  in  toward  the  shore 
confident  that  we  had  found  a  river  and  many 
times  that  blind  shore-line  laughed  at  us — 
of  such  infinite  variety  are  the  conformations 
that  they  are  bewildering  in  their  very 
monotony. 

It  was  pure  chance  that  we  did  find  River 
Number  Two  at  all,  though  we  were  scarcely 
a  hundred  yards  from  the  shore  when  abreast 
of  it.  We  had  looked  for  rapids,  perhaps 
a  waterfall,  at  the  very  least  a  "  riffle. " 
There  was  none  of  these.  There  did  n't 
seem  to  be  much  current.  Yet  it  was  a  river, 
because  we  could  trace  its  bed  winding  far 
inland  through  a  valley  by  the  lighter  green 
[42] 


'There  's  a  Rare  Camping-Spot  at  Duncan's  Cove. 


9  -)- 


He  was  Lurking  at  the  River-Mouth. 


Entangling  Alliances 


of  the  trees  and  bushes  that  lined  its  tor- 
turous course.  Cautiously  we  poled  launch 
and  tow-boat  to  casting-range  and  a  colony 
of  trout  rushed  to  their  rare  taste  of  civili- 
zation and  its  dissipations.  Three  men 
casting  simultaneously  from  an  eighteen-foot 
launch  can  together  produce  an  entertain- 
ment full  of  life,  color,  and  comment-pro- 
voking situations.  Gepe  began  auspiciously 
by  hooking  himself  in  a  place  where  ex- 
traction was  the  least  convenient  to  Gepe. 
Then  Marv.  wrapped  a  back-cast  deftly 
about  the  Camp  Boss's  neck,  and  the  Camp 
Boss  put  a  Montreal  No.  3  in  the  exhaust 
pipe — of  the  launch-engine — of  course. 

As  if  this  little  exchange  of  amity  and 
comity  offered  too  little  variety,  Billy  and 
Mac  drifted  up  nonchalantly  in  the  tow-boat 
and  began  inserting  fly-hooks  and  festooning 
lines  in  such  portions  of  launch  and  its  occu- 
pants' anatomies  as  the  crew  had  overlooked. 
We  caught  trout  up  to  a  pound.  The  sport 
palled  and  it  began  to  look  too  much  like 
[431 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


game-hogging.     Then  the  reefs  outside,  snarl- 
ing in  foam,  called  to  us. 

It  is  not  always  that  one  can  fish  the  reefs 
of  Lake  Superior.  I  have  waited  and  fretted 
and  brooded  in  camp  for  a  week  for  those 
white-caps  to  cease  their  snarling  over 
yellow-fanged  rocks  where  the  biggest  trout 
lie.  One  must  catch  Superior  in  sunny  humor 
and  that  is  n't  often;  generally  it  is  in  the 
very  early  morning  or  as  evening  is  closing 
in  on  a  brilliant  day.  These  reefs  are  every- 
where along  the  whole  Superior  coast.  They 
may  mark  the  entrance  to  bay  or  cove  or 
channel  between  islands.  They  may  be 
near  some  little  river's  mouth,  or  they  may 
stand  out  stark  and  isolated,  a  sinister  splotch 
of  snow,  a  white  signal  of  great  peril  upon 
the  green  of  the  deep  water,  with  the  brown 
rocks  of  the  shore  completing  the  picture 
of  triumphant  wilderness.  The  only  essen- 
tials for  trout  are  that  the  water  be  com- 
paratively shallow,  ten  feet  at  the  most; 
and  that  the  bottom,  the  size  and  shape  and 
[44] 


Fontinalis,  a  Wanderer 

arrangement  of  the  rocks  on  the  lake-floor, 
offer  feeding  places  for  trout.  That  is 
known  generally  as  a  "likely"  reef  and  no 
other  characterization  is  at  all  illuminating 
nor  adequate.  We  have  caught  trout  in 
water  that  was  green  in  depth-color,  bathing 
rocks  on  the  shore  that  towered  up  two 
hundred  feet.  And  we  have  caught  them 
five  miles  from  the  nearest  river-mouth. 
And  they  are  brook-trout,  fontinalis,  a 
little  less  brilliantly  colored,  perhaps,  and 
a  little,  a  very  little,  more  silvery — but 
fontinalis  just  the  same.  On  the  South 
Shore  they  are  called  "coasters,"  and  it  is 
off  the  reef  that  one  gets  the  three,  four,  even 
five  pounders — only  the  Nepigon,  Steel,  and 
Agawa  Rivers  know  bigger  fish. 

Personally,  I  have  found  the  brilliant 
salmon  flies,  such  as  Silver  Doctor,  Royal 
Coachman,  and  even  Red  Ibis,  the  best  lure 
for  reef-casting.  One  beloved  and  battered 
Parmachenee  Belle  that  now,  in  its  honorable 
scars  of  battle,  looks  like  a  last  season's 
[451 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


picture-hat,  has  brought  a  dozen  trout  from 
elysium  in  the  green  depths.  The  sport  of 
reef  fishing  lies,  perhaps,  in  the  length  of 
line  upon  which  one  gets  the  fish,  the  facility 
for  casting,  and  the  amazing  gaminess  and 
ferocity  of  the  fish.  It  appears  to  be  the 
consensus  of  passably  expert  opinion  among 
Superior  fishermen  that  the  best  reef  fishing 
of  the  lake  is  to  be  found  off  the  rocks  at 
the  entrance  to  the  Little  Pic  River.  But, 
literally,  everywhere  there  is  reef  fishing. 

We  did  very  well  on  those  reefs ;  the  official 
Log  says  so.  Just  how  well  it  were  immodest 
and  unnecessary  to  chronicle.  We  did  better 
over  those  reefs  in  another  year.  We  had 
with  us  then  a  very  gentle,  willing,  enthusi- 
astic, lovable  tenderfoot  in  the  person  of  a 
nature-hungry  Business  Man.  All  he  knew 
about  casting  or  patching  a  birchbark  canoe 
he  had  gleaned  by  assiduous  reading  of 
the  instruction-departments  of  the  vacation- 
magazines  and  those  devilish  catalogues  of 
the  sporting-goods  men.  It  will  be  seen  at 
[46] 


bx> 
G 

'So 

C 
CO 

I8 

U)  a 
o   -^ 

«  ^ 


The  Business  Man  Casts 

a  glance  how  intimate  and  intensive  the 
Business  Man's  camping-erudition  really  was. 
He  had  a  wonderful  fishing  outfit.  He 
knew  it  was  wonderful,  because  it  had  cost 
him  $525.72.  The  72  cents  was  for  an 
aluminum  safety-pin,  "quickly,  safely,  and 
neatly"  to  "fasten  leader-box  to  alligator- 
skin  belt." 

The  Business  Man  had  done  lots  of  spec- 
tacular and  delightful  things  before  we 
reached  the  reefs,  but  here  was  his  ripest 
achievement.  We  told  him  how  to  cast 
and,  conjuring  up  his  full,  profound  theo- 
retical knowledge  he  did  so — while  his  boat- 
mates  sought  cover  beneath  the  seats  and 
stern-sheets.  Trout  are  full  of  caprices. 
One  rushed  at  the  Business  Man's  fly  as 
with  it  he  roughly  lashed  the  water  into 
foam.  He  didn't  see  the  fish  and  looked 
surprised  when  we  called  his  attention  to 
the  pleasing  incident.  Another  foolish  trout 
tried  to  catch  the  fleeting  vision  of  food,  and 
tugged  the  Business  Man's  line.  The  situa- 
[471 


At  Duncan's  Cove 


tion  was  novel  to  him.  He  could  n't  recall 
what  good  usage  demanded.  So  he  did 
nothing.  He  explained  afterward  that  he 
thought  it  might  be  the  safe  and  courteous 
course  to  permit  the  trout  to  swallow  the  fly 
right  down  to  his  tail,  if  he  cared  to,  and 
then  deftly  pull  the  trout  inside-out,  thus 
saving  much  irksome  culinary  labor.  We 
expostulated  with  the  Business  Man  and 
told  him  to  "strike"  the  instant  the  trout 
took  the  fly,  before  he  could  bite  it  and  learn 
the  hollow  mockery  of  the  snare.  The  third 
trout  came.  The  Business  Man  threw  his 
whole  1 80  pounds  into  the  strategy  and  jerked. 
We  found  on  his  tail-fly  a  tragic  bit  of  fish- 
gill.  We  counselled,  then,  alacrity  and  force, 
but  both  in  moderation. 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  trout  on  the 
reef  that  day  were  deliberately  baiting  that 
Business  Man.  The  fourth  trout  came. 
Possibly  he  was  looking  for  an  extractor  of 
an  aching  or  superfluous  gill.  The  Business 
Man  struck  and  the  trout  stuck.  Came, 
[48] 


A  Line  in  Pleasant  Places 

then,  a  wealth  of  hearty  and  conflicting 
suggestions.  The  Business  Man  reeled  and 
gave  out  line,  rushed  over  people's  feet, 
shouted  for  the  landing  net,  and  implored 
silence  and  sea-room.  Then  panic  seized 
him  and  claimed  him  as  its  own.  He  in- 
continently dropped  his  rod  to  the  bottom 
of  the  boat,  seized  his  line,  and  began  hauling 
in  that  trout  hand-over-hand  in  long,  sweeping 
jerks.  In  about  two  jerks  it  was  all  over 
— save  for  the  Business  Man.  Then  he 
dropped  his  reel  overboard  and  we  had  to 
haul  in  fifty  yards  of  line  before  we  could 
net  it.  The  Business  Man,  however,  has 
lived  down  that  dark  and  hilarious  chapter. 
He  is  now  a  blood-brother  of  the  North  Shore. 


[491 


CHAPTER  III 

AT  THE  KNEE  OF  MICHAEL 

YOU  will  not  find  Squaw  Harbor  nor 
Pappoose  Bay  on  the  maps  of  St. 
Ignace  Island,  which  resolutely  warns  Lake 
Superior  back  from  the  refuge  of  Nepigon 
Bay.  There  is  reason  for  that.  There  is 
really  so  much  in  Lake  Superior  to  put  on  the 
map  and  the  few  people  who  are  there  to 
cut  pulp- wood  or  run  surveys  or  just  fish  are 
really  much  too  busy  to  trifle  with  a  topo- 
graphical feature  that  spans  less  than  three 
or  four  miles.  There  is  no  drug  store  on 
the  island  whose  kindly  city-directory,  be- 
tween the  cigar  case  and  the  telephone,  tells 
you  what  car  line  to  take  to  Squaw  Harbor 
and  Pappoose  Bay.  There  is  no  corner 
policeman  with  ponderous  circumlocution, 
nor  small  boy  with  suspicious  alacrity  to 
[50] 


Joe  Cadotte,  Guide  and  Wilderness-Brother. 


When  Superior  Begins  to  Sulk. 


Tactful  Candor 


direct  you,  either.  Yet  Squaw  Harbor  and 
Pappoose  Bay  are  on  the  southern  shore  of 
St.  Ignace  Island,  about  five  and  one  half 
miles,  which  in  the  northern  wilderness 
signifies  quite  nothing  whatever,  from  Dun- 
can's Cove.  There!  The  secret  is  out. 
I  am  wilfully  and  nefariously  violating  the 
very  canons  of  fishermen's  ethics  in  telling 
you  these  places  by  their  really,  truly  names 
and  giving  mileage  with  such  wanton  ex- 
plicitness.  There  is  reason,  or,  at  least, 
palliation  for  this  confidence.  You  could 
get  right  up  to  the  doors  of  Squaw  Harbor 
and  Pappoose  Bay  and  push  the  button  with- 
out recognizing  the  neighborhood.  I  could 
give  you  red-inked  charts  and  careful  triangu- 
lations  and  landmarks  and  a  slap  on  the 
back  and  you  could  not  find  Squaw  Harbor 
or  Pappoose  Bay  without  a  guide,  and  you 
could  spend  a  month  hunting  around  Nepigon 
or  Rossport  or  Port  Arthur  for  a  guide  who 
really  knows  St.  Ignace  Island.  Occa- 
sionally, there  arise  those  concrete  situations 
[51] 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

when  honesty  is  not  only  "the  best  policy," 
but  really  a  very  showy  sort  of  a  literary 
expedient. 

It  was  noontime  when  we  found  Squaw 
Harbor.  We  had  fished  the  reefs  and  a  sea 
was  beginning  to  roll  in  from  the  old  lake 
which  made  reef-casting  futile  and  highly 
gymnastic.  We  very  much  wanted  a  place 
to  moor  the  launch  and  build  a  fire  for  tea- 
pot and  frying-pan.  First,  we  saw  a  beach 
of  wonderful  flat  stones.  We  followed  this 
beach  around.  It  was  the  left  shore,  evi- 
dently, of  a  likely-looking  cove.  The  right 
shore  was  rocks  and  timber  down  to  the  very 
water's  edge,  an  impenetrable  wall.  We  stuck 
close  to  the  beach,  running  under  a  check, 
turning  always  to  the  left,  until  we  abruptly 
slid  into  a  crystal  basin,  a  perfect  oval,  per- 
haps fifteen  feet  deep;  but  so  wondrously  calm 
and  clear  was  the  water,  that  pebbles  on  the 
bottom  sparkled  in  the  chromatic  reflection. 
We  sailed  slowly  to  the  end  of  this  enchanted 
pool  and  found  that  a  wooded  strip  scarcely 
[52] 


A  Titan's  Bath-Tub 


twenty  feet  wide  was  all  that  separated  us 
from  Lake  Superior,  booming  outside.  We 
were  back  at  the  point  where  we  had  first 
found  the  beach,  afloat  in  a  perfect  miniature 
harbor.  Billy  called  it  "Superior's  guest- 
chamber."  Superior  has  many  such  guest- 
chambers,  though  none  so  symmetrical  and 
wholly  bewitching  as  this. 

We  lunched  on  that  beach.  The  launch 
was  pulled  out;  the  bow  on  the  beach,  the 
stern  in  fifteen  feet  of  water  in  a  natural 
bath-tub  built  for  a  Titan.  The  flat  stones 
made  a  stove  of  quaint  architecture  but 
admitted  efficiency.  We  fried  the  trout. 
We  brewed  the  tea.  What  fabulous  divi- 
dends would  the  metropolitan  cafe*  pay  that 
could  specialize  in  fried  trout,  toast,  tea 
and  marmalade  such  as  that!  But  no  cafe* 
can,  for  it  is  not  the  trout  and  toast  and  tea 
and  marmalade,  labor  of  love  though  they 
are,  but  the  sauce  of  the  wilderness. 

With  the  marmalade  there  returned  suffi- 
cient strength  for  the  quite  inevitable  aca- 
[53] 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

demic  discussion.  Billy  spoke  admiringly 
of  the  "dry-fly"  casting  necessary  to  lure 
the  highly  educated  trout  in  the  streams 
of  English  country  estates.  Gepe  scoffed 
at  the  skill  which  casting  of  such  nice  accuracy 
and  flawless  technique  entails.  Billy  bet  a 
ten-dollar  note — a  sagacious  wager  always 
in  the  wilderness — or  a  package  of  real 
Turkish  cigarettes,  that  he  could  keep  his 
fly  in  the  air  until  he  was  ready  to  drop  it 
into  the  water  and  could  then  drop  it  within 
six  inches  of  the  spot  he  coveted. 

They  repaired  to  the  edge  of  that  wonder- 
ful beach.  The  "gallery"  left  the  "lunch 
things"  and  went  to  applaud  and  sneer. 
Billy  performed  spectacularly.  His  fly  winged 
about  like  a  thing  alive.  Then  he  said 
"here  goes"  and  aimed  at  a  cork — Gepe's 
contribution — floating  thirty-five  feet  out  in 
the  harbor.  The  fly  alighted,  softly  as  a 
snow-drop,  scarcely  an  inch  from  the  cork. 
Billy  started  his  back-cast,  for  the  fly  must 
not  be  permitted  to  get  wet.  His  rod  fairly 
[54] 


A  Taste  for  Antiques 


doubled  on  itself.  There  was  a  swirl  of 
water  and  a  gutteral  exclamation  from  Billy. 
In  that  fraction  of  a  second  that  his  fly  had 
rested  on  the  water  a  lunking  trout  had  taken 
it  and  was  now  racing  lakeward.  He  was 
brought  back  cautiously,  only  to  stampede 
again  and  yet  again.  At  last  we  drew  him 
out  on  the  beach,  belly-up.  Ranged  along 
that  beach,  casting-distance  apart,  we  killed 
a  half  dozen  fish.  I  had  a  curious  mishap. 
Thoughtlessly  I  had  brought  a  very  old 
book  of  very  old  flies,  a  heritage,  I  think. 
In  a  mad  moment  I  had  mixed  those  flies 
with  modern  and  staunch  ones.  An  old 
fly  had  insidiously  worked  its  way  to  my 
leader.  A  trout,  with  a  taste  for  antiques, 
took  that  treacherous  relic  and,  just  as  I  was 
about  to  fling  him  out  upon  the  beach,  the 
snell  broke.  He  swam  off  groggily  and  then 
sank  to  the  bottom,  weary  and  worn,  to 
get  his  wind.  I  presume  that  obese  trout 
are  short  of  breath.  In  that  pellucid  water 
we  watched  him  and  yearned  for  him.  The 
[551 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

Camp  Boss,  attracted  by  the  execrations 
and  cries  of  anguish,  came  up  and  inaugu- 
rated a  systematic  course  to  salvage  that 
trout.  He  put  a  sinker  on  his  line  and 
bumped  that  exhausted  fish  on  the  nose  until 
he  had  a  fly  underneath  him.  Then  he  lifted 
smartly  and  behold!  The  trout  was  hooked 
and  brought  unresisting  to  his  doom! 

A  loon  led  us  into  Pappoose  Bay  that  same 
afternoon,  a  loon  that  had  been  to  the  grocery 
and  was  hastening  home,  purchase-laden,  to 
her  hungry  brood.  In  shape  and  compara- 
tive size  Pappoose  Bay  is  a  sort  of  third-floor- 
suite  arrangement  with  reference  to  Squaw 
Harbor;  a  chamber  for  guests  of,  perhaps, 
the  second  magnitude.  There  are,  too,  the 
beach,  the  unrippled  lagoon,  the  screen  of 
living-green  between  it  and  morose  Superior 
— and  the  trout,  lurking  in  crystalline  depths. 
We  found  an  Indian  camp  in  the  bushes  near 
by  Pappoose  Bay.  Two  things  told  us  it  was 
an  Indian  camp — the  tepee-poles  and  its 
location  in  the  bushes,  where  no  human  but 
[56] 


Lo,  the  Poor  Indian 


an  Indian  could  for  an  hour  live  in  sanity 
with  black-flies. 

That  there  is  a  decided  intellectual  move- 
ment— upward  or  downward — among  the 
Indian  indigenous  to  Pappoose  Bay  we  found 
undeniable  evidence.  It  was  the  fragment 
of  a  dime-novel,  most  virulent  and  lurid — 
done  in  English.  Even  the  author  of  such 
turgid  fiction  must  have  a  torpid  conscience 
and  I  will  not  crush  him  entirely  by  giving 
his  name  and  infamy  to  the  world.  The 
incident,  however,  offers  a  nice  conjectural 
point  for  discussion — whether  literature  is 
regenerating  or  debauching  the  fairly  "no- 
ble red  man."  Billy  wondered  what  "the 
six  best  sellers"  in  Pappoose  Bay  were, 
anyway. 

In  the  basin  of  Pappoose  Bay  Mac  had  a 
curious  experience  with  a  trout.  I  find  it 
entered  with  minute  detail  and  quite  breath- 
less gusto  in  the  Log  of  that  year,  because 
it  impressed  me  then  as  an  incident  that 
added  a  brand  new  chapter  to  ichthyological 
[57] 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

researches.  Since  then  the  phenomenon  has 
been  repeated  at  least  three  times  and  I  have 
lost  the  hectic  flush  of  the  discovery.  A 
trout  took  Mac's  tail-fly,  a  little  Brown 
Hackle,  rather  frayed  and  faded,  took  it 
away  with  him,  in  fact,  as  if  for  closer  scru- 
tiny at  his  leisure.  Mac  was,  of  course, 
disconsolate.  The  trout  grew  in  length  and 
weight  and  beam  as  Mac  detailed  the  outrage 
to  each  sympathetic  member  of  the  party  in 
turn,  until  that  trout,  in  making  off  with  his 
loot,  really  raised  a  swell  that  inundated 
beach  and  launch  like  a  tidal-wave.  To  take 
his  mind  from  such  depressing  retrospection, 
Mac  was  urged  to  cast  again  with  the  hope 
of  avenging  the  insult;  perhaps  upon  the 
culprit's  brother  or  some  other  blood  relation. 
On  the  second  cast,  Mac  got  a  rise  and 
hooked  his  fish.  With  surprisingly  little 
exertion  he  netted  his  fish  and  found  his 
abducted  Brown  Hackle  coquettishly  deco- 
rating that  gourmand's  jaw.  Clearly,  then, 
if  fish  have  even  an  elementary  nervous 
[58] 


Adorable  Frailties 


system,  they  do  not  permit  it  to  interfere 
with  their  appetites. 

When  the  Camp  Boss  looked  significantly 
at  his  watch,  it  was  six  o'clock  and  we  were 
nearly  ten  miles  from  camp.  That  is,  the 
Camp  Boss  subsequently  deduced  that  it 
was  six  o'clock.  That  watch  of  the  Camp 
Boss's  was  a  fecund  source  of  discussion, 
admiration,  and  fatuous  entertainment  for 
four  consecutive  years  on  the  North  Shore. 
It  was,  I  think,  the  only  watch  I  ever  knew 
that  really  possessed  and  demonstrated,  with 
the  slightest  encouragement,  a  temperament. 
When  the  Camp  Boss  essayed  to  tell  the 
time  by  that  sullen  and  volatile  computator, 
he  followed  always  the  same  impressive 
ceremony.  First,  he  looked  at  it  searchingly, 
half  distrustfully,  rather  reproachfully.  Then 
he  rapped  it  smartly  three  times  in  quick 
succession  upon  a  friendly  rock  or  tree  or 
cylinder  of  the  engine.  Hurriedly,  then? 
he  'd  get  the  general  trend  of  time  by  re- 
calling the  events  of  the  day  in  chronological 
[59l 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

order;  look  searchingly  at  the  sun,  if  there 
were  any;  produce  a  pencil  and  paper;  make 
a  rapid  but  surprisingly  accurate  calcula- 
tion, and  announce  the  time  with  a  ring  of 
well-repressed  triumph  that  always  quite 
swept  us  off  our  feet  in  a  tumult  of  applause. 
"  Mathematics  taught  in  camp"  or  "  Wenley's 
Wonder- Working  Watch,  a  stimulus  and 
absorbing  game  for  slow-witted  campers!" 
I  Ve  often  marvelled  why  the  sporting-goods 
men  and  their  catalogues  have  n't  commer- 
cialized that  temperamental  watch  of  the 
Camp  Boss. 

Anyhow,  it  was  six  o'clock.  We  stopped 
neither  at  the  reefs  nor  the  little  rivers  but 
dashed  straight  for  camp.  Even  a  tiny  thing 
such  as  the  Wagush  and  her  draught  of 
scarcely  sixteen  inches  must  look  searchingly 
ahead  in  those  treacherous  waters.  There 
are  buried  reefs  and  needle-pointed  rocks 
everywhere  and  in  the  most  unexpected 
places.  Once,  when  at  least  two  miles  off 
shore,  opposite  Heron  Bay,  cruising  in  a 
[60] 


Michael's  Fire  Guides 

dory  that  drew  eighteen  inches  of  water,  we 
struck  one  of  these  church-spires  stretching 
up,  perhaps,  three  hundred  feet  from  the 
lake-floor.  So  fast  were  we  travelling,  that 
we  fairly  hurdled  it  and  stove  through  one- 
inch  planking  a  hole,  which  we  were  able 
to  plug. 

Night  was  closing  in  as  the  Wagush  sped 
to  Duncan's  Cove.  Superior  was  "thick- 
ening up."  The  sun  being  obscured  by 
clouds  and  lake-mist,  it  suddenly  grew  un- 
believably cold.  A  choppy  sea,  too,  was 
running,  we  found  when  we  shot  out  of  the 
shelter  of  the  last  toy-archipelago  and  struck 
straight  across  the  considerable  bay  that 
joins  Superior  and  Duncan's  Cove.  The 
ice-cold  spray  deluged  and  chilled  us.  But 
swinging  about  the  last  gray  point  in  the 
shadow  of  great  cliffs  hurling  green  waves 
and  eternal  defiance  back  to  the  warring 
lake,  we  saw  the  glare  of  Michael's  huge 
camp-fire,  lighting  up  the  whole  rocky  alcove; 
it  illumined  our  course  and  suffused  our 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

hearts  with  a  gentle  glow.  "Nosie"  ex- 
tended a  welcome  as  ecstatic  as  cramped  legs 
would  permit  and  reclaimed  his  gods,  caprices, 
disloyalty,  and  all.  There  was  warm  cloth- 
ing to  be  donned  nimbly.  There  was  a  flask 
of  "family  size."  There  was  the  crackling 
fire  of  pine  and  fat-birch.  There  were 
Michael  and  Joe's  dinner-preparations  sus- 
pended at  the  very  denouement  for  the 
coming  of  the  masters — and  the  coming  of 
the  trout.  We  dined  in  the  fire's  glow. 

We  led  Gepe  away  from  the  table  (it  was 
a  table,  too;  resourceful  Joe  had  fashioned 
it  from  two  pine  boards  cast  up  by  the  seas 
to  bleach  to  snowy  whiteness).  To  be 
accurate,  we  carried  Gepe  from  the  table. 
Not  that  his  incredible  capacity  menaced 
the  commissary,  but  we  cared  for  Gepe; 
cared  for  him  much  more  deeply  than  we 
cared  for  the  imminent  probability  of  a 
hopelessly  foundered  tenderfoot  on  our  hands. 
One  must  remember  that  in  the  first  days 
in  the  wilderness.  The  exposure,  the  physical 
[62] 


Post-Prandial  Prowess 

exertion,  the  tonic  of  air  and  sun  bring  the 
commensurate  appetite  to  restore  the  nerves 
and  muscles  and  tissues  before  the  digestive 
organs  have  time  to  prepare  themselves  for 
the  new  and  extraordinary  demands  made 
upon  them.  The  temptation  to  overeat  is 
strong.  The  penalties  are  immediate  and 
severe.  Many  a  glorious  vacation  has  been 
nipped  in  the  bud  by  this  indiscretion. 

In  the  delicious  reaction  that,  in  the  wil- 
derness, comes  ever  with  a  full  stomach  and 
an  emptied  briar  pipe,  energy  and  ambition 
hand-in-hand  returned  to  Billy  and  Gepe. 
They  dared  each  other  to  deeds  of  agility, 
strength,  and  daring.  After  an  exhaustive 
exchange  of  slurs  and  invidious  comparisons, 
they  repaired  to  the  beach,  there  together 
to  join  the  issue  and  carry  to  the  fire  the 
sturdiest  timber  that  Superior  had  tossed 
upon  a  heaving  billow.  There  were  much 
grunting  and  muttered  recrimination  in  the 
darkness.  They  worked  for  a  while  with 
taunts  and  maledictions  upon  the  opposite 
[63] 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

ends  of  two  distinct  timbers,  so  deeply  em- 
bedded in  the  sand  that  a  fish-tug  could 
not  have  budged  them.  Having  discovered 
this  discrepancy  and  focused  their  efforts 
upon  the  same  log,  they  returned  with  re- 
newed enthusiasm  to  mutual  accusations, 
and,  at  last,  came  back  to  the  fire  empty- 
handed,  each  full  of  descriptive  adjectives 
for  the  treachery  and  physical  subnormality 
of  the  other.  Joe  witnessed  that  thrilling 
duel  of  well-trained  vocabularies  and  a  few 
minutes  later,  grinning  broadly  but  with 
never  a  word,  he  brought  that  timber  along 
with  four  larger  ones  to  the  fire  in  a  single 
armful. 

Michael  came  out  of  the  shadows  when 
Joe  had  handed  his  quietus  to  our  comedians 
and  asked  how  we  should  like  to  have  boiled 
trout  on  the  morrow.  Michael  often  lays 
neat  little  ambushes,  more  insidious  and 
deadly  than  the  more  sanguinary  ones  of  his 
forebears.  I  thought  I  scented  one  here. 
We  told  Michael  that  the  suggestion  of  a 
[64] 


Boiling  in  Birchbark? 


boiled  trout  filled  us  with  poetic  longing, 
but  not  having  carried  an  iron  pot  300  miles 
with  us,  and  the  local  hardware  stores  un- 
questionably being  closed  for  the  night,  we 
guessed  we  'd  have  to  starve  on  fried  trout 
for  a  while.  "  No, "  said  Michael  indulgently. 
"No  iron  pot.  I  make  pot  to  boil  trout  with 
birchbark." 

That  was  frankly  side-splitting.  Michael's 
whimsical  humor  had  betrayed  itself  at 
last!  The  spectacle  of  a  trout  simmering 
over  a  fire  in  a  pot  of  birchbark,  which  for 
inflammability  is  a  substantial  improvement 
upon  gasoline-soaked  tinder,  was  too  mirth- 
provoking.  We  laughed  heartily  at  Michael, 
who  did  n't  laugh — just  smiled  Michael's 
very  gentle  and  sweet  old  smile. 

The  next  morning  Michael  appeared  with 
a  birchbark  pot.  It  was  unquestionably 
water-tight  and  most  ingeniously  made. 
A  very  workmanly  job.  It  had  two  neat 
little  compartments.  But  how  make  it  fire- 
proof? We  stopped  smiling  and  exchanging 
s  [65] 


At  the  Knee  of  Michael 

clever  comments.  Michael  first  showed  that 
water  could  circulate  between  the  two  com- 
partments. Then  he  half-filled  them.  He 
put  the  trout,  a  good  three-pounder,  in  one 
compartment.  With  two  sticks  he  deftly 
took  a  stone  from  the  ashes  of  the  fire,  white 
hot.  Very,  very  slowly  he  immersed  the 
stone  in  the  water  of  the  other  birchbark 
compartment.  When  the  stone  was  sub- 
merged, the  water  and  the  trout  were  boiling 
in  the  adjacent  compartment.  Thus  we 
lunched  upon  boiled  trout,  boiled  in  a  pot 
unscathed  by  fire.  Since  that  demonstra- 
tion of  primitive  culinary  resource  there  have 
arisen  many,  many  occasions  where  Michael 
has  had  the  last,  satisfying  laugh  and  has 
always,  too,  laughed  with  an  abandon  and 
lightness  of  heart  remarkable  in  the  stoi- 
cal red  man.  It  was  at  Michael's  knee  in 
the  warm  shelter  of  Duncan's  Cove  that 
we  learned  first  to  toddle  in  the  northern 
wilderness. 


[66] 


CHAPTER  IV 

EXPLORING  THE   HEADWATERS   OF    THE   STEEL 
RIVER  AND  BILLY  FRASER'S  ANECDOTES 

ALAS,  the  poor  Nepigon!  Whence  have 
fled  the  sacred  silences  and  sanctity 
of  the  wilderness?  You  dress  for  dinner  now 
in  the  roar  of  the  rapids  and  drop  off  to  see 
a  lawn-f£te  or  a  polo-game  while  your  packers 
are  taking  your  outfit  over  the  portage.  At 
least,  the  modern  Nepigon  is  almost  as  bad 
as  that.  The  bustle  and  thrift  and  concourse 
that  come  with  judicious  advertising  and 
continuous  exaggeration  have  entered  in. 
Every  angler,  before  qualifying,  must  do  the 
Nepigon,  precisely  as  the  young  pianist 
traditionally  must  have  a  whirl  with  The 
Moonlight  Sonata,  or  the  budding  man  of 
letters  flounder  in  the  "symbolism  of  Maeter- 
linck." Twice  we  have  tried  the  Nepigon. 
[67] 


The  Steel  River 


Once  we  went  the  forty  miles,  nearly  to  Lake 
Nepigon,  blithely  crowding  the  portages  with 
fellow  "tourists"  (hated  term)  and  bumping 
canoes  as  continuously  as  if  it  were  a  park- 
lagoon  on  ' '  band-concert  night. ' '  The  second 
time  we  brawled  with  the  drunken  Indians 
of  the  guides'  union  for  two  days  and  gave 
it  up  when  the  head  guide,  sullenly  drunk, 
insisted  upon  inventorying  our  commissary 
to  assure  himself  that  delicacies  were  forth- 
coming worthy  of  his  station  and  epicurean 
tastes.  The  Nepigon  has  been  popularized 
and  commercialized.  Either  is  desolation 
and  both  mean  death.  It  is  paying  the 
dread  penalty  of  literary  distinction. 

I  mention  these  unpleasant  aspects  of  the 
new  Nepigon  simply  to  show  that  we  were 
literally  driven  to  the  Steel  River.  And 
for  this  circumstance  we  have  always  been 
extravagantly  grateful  to  the  plethora  of 
pestiferous  tourists  and  the  convivial  guides 
of  the  Nepigon. 

To  us  the  Steel  first  proffered  the  need- 
[68] 


Not  Tourist-Trodden  Yet 

ful  hospitality  of  the  "overflow  meeting." 
Thereafter,  it  was  three  weeks  of  paradise, 
and  then  eleven  months  of  pining  and  antici- 
pation. I  will  not  tell  you  where  it  was. 
That  were  unethical — and  unnecessary.  It 
is  marvellous,  is  the  Steel  River.  It  is  a 
Nepigon  reduced  about  one  third  and,  scen- 
ically,  wilder  and  more  gorgeous.  Five 
miles  from  its  cunningly  concealed  mouth 
there  is  a  natural  harbor,  Jack  Fish  Bay, 
and  in  the  harbor  there  is  a  coaling  station  of 
the  Canadian  Pacific  Railroad.  Perhaps  a 
half  dozen  parties  a  year  ascend  the  Steel, 
but  only  to  Mountain  Lake,  ten  miles  from 
Lake  Superior.  Thirty  miles  beyond  that 
it  begins  its  mad  scrambling  and  tumbling 
down  from  the  highlands,  through  canyons 
and  caverns,  over  falls  of  forty  feet  and  rapids 
of  chaos — and  that  is  thirty  miles  of  true 
wilderness — and  virgin  fishing. 

We  had  been  out  for  two  weeks,  in  thirty- 
foot  power-dory  Wagush,  and  tow-boat,  when, 
as  night  was  closing  in,   with  a  southwest 
[69] 


The  Steel  River 


blow  coming  on,  too,  we  swung  around  the 
last  rocky  promontory  and  romped  into 
Jack  Fish  Bay. 

Bill  Fraser  was  waiting  for  us  and  had 
been  waiting  for  us  with  canoes  and  grub 
and  packers  and  waning  enthusiasm  for  a 
week.  Bill  Fraser  keeps  a  hotel,  the  hotel, 
at  Jack  Fish.  I  have  always  suspected  that 
Bill  Fraser  keeps  the  hotel  simply  to  afford 
prodigal  hospitality  to  every  brother  fisher- 
man and  insure  himself  an  audience  for  his 
shooting  and  fishing  narratives.  Hotel  and 
narratives  are  good.  Bill  himself  weighs 
1 60  pounds  and  can  carry  200  pounds  over 
the  portages  without  interrupting  his  remin- 
iscence. 

We  were  off  at  sunrise.  That  is,  we  stag- 
gered from  our  beds  at  sunrise  with  assur- 
ance of  starting  up  the  river  immediately. 
First  an  all-essential  "tunk-strap,"  for  pack- 
ing, was  missing  and  Bill  Fraser  found  that 
Bill,  Jr.,  had  been  using  it  for  reins.  Then 
a  setter-pup  showed  symptoms  of  distemper 
[70] 


Frontier  Pastimes 


and  whined  for  sulphur,  and  a  fish-tug  came 
in  to  coal,  and  the  sweet-faced  old  lady  of 
Jack  Fish's  one  store  must  be  routed  out 
to  sell  us  bacon  and  bread. 

Bill  Fraser  has  a  team  and  wagon  on  the 
first  portage,  which  is  exceedingly  good,  be- 
cause the  portage  is  four  miles  long.  How- 
ever, the  manner  of  getting  team  and  wagon 
from  Bill's  stable  to  the  beginning  of  the 
portage  is  "quite  a  chore,"  a  hair-raising, 
nerve-shattering  sort  of  a  "  chore . "  A  granite 
ridge,  impassable  save  to  mountain-sheep, 
drops  down  to  Lake  Superior.  The  track 
of  the  Canadian  Pacific  is  the  only  highway 
Bill's  team  knows.  Walls  of  rock  hedge  in 
that  track.  There  is  no  hope  and  no  room 
for  side-stepping.  Bill  hitches  up,  reduces 
his  wagon-load  to  greatest  sprinting-efficiency, 
takes  a  look  at  the  time-table  of  regular 
trains,  and  with  a  whoop  starts  up  the  railroad 
track  on  his  mile  dash.  The  meeting-up 
with  a  way-freight  or  belated  transcontinental 
would  mean  a  contretemps  which  Bill  has 


The  Steel  River 


now  for  twenty  years  contemplated  with  a 
grin.  He  has  come  to  enjoy  the  sport  of 
outguessing  the  Canadian  Pacific. 

We  walked — and  walked  well  in  the  rear — 
out  of  range  of  flying  fragments.  The  tearq, 
had  scarcely  slipped  off  the  ties,  down  OIP, 
the  trail,  when  a  freight  whizzed  by.  The 
engineer  shook  his  fist  at  Bill  Fraser  as  if 
promising  himself  better  luck  next  time. 
They  're  grim  humorists — these  frontiersmen. 

When  we  saw  a  dainty  little  Peterboro 
canoe  and  Bill's  preparation  to  pack  it  on 
the  wagon,  we  asked  Bill  frankly,  perhaps 
sharply,  if  he  purposed  taking  four  men  and 
about  five  hundred  pounds  of  duffel  and  grub 
over  forty  miles  of  swift  water  in  that  cute 
little  desk-ornament.  Quickly  we  saw  we  had 
hurt  Bill's  feelings  and  pride.  The  portage 
problem  he  had  solved  long  ago  with  the 
swift,  strong  sweep  of  the  pioneer.  That 
canoe  was  for  the  first  lake  only.  There  was 
another  for  the  second  lake  and  the  two  big 
roomy,  rangey  Peterboros  waited  at  the 
[72] 


Paddling  across  a  Mirror 

end  of  the  second  lake  for  the  up-river 
trip. 

Bill  Fraser  sitting  astride  the  bottom  of 
that  canoe,  a-top  the  wagon,  careening  over 
boulders,  down  gulches,  and  through  thickets, 
gave  an  exhibition  of  boatmanship  as  thrilling 
as  I  ever  saw.  At  the  first  stop  we  found 
the  syrup  loose  in  Jim's  flannels  and  the 
quinine  pills  in  the  butter-jar. 

Rough  as  it  is,  that  country  of  the  first 
four-mile  portage  is  as  beautiful  as  a  city 
park.  The  trees  are  the  exquisite  white- 
birch  with  an  occasional  spruce  or  balsam 
for  purely  decorative  purposes.  We  made 
Clear  Water  Lake  in  an  hour  and  then  in 
canoe  loaded  to  the  gun'ale,  on  both  trips,  we 
were  off  across  a  mirror-like  sheet  of  water, 
perhaps  a  mile  and  a  half  wide.  We  went 
silently — at  Bill  Fraser's  suggestion — and 
we  were  rewarded.  A  splash — carried  miles 
in  the  sylvan  silence — warned  us  that  we 
were  not  quite  alone.  Then  a  prodigious 
splashing — and  we  saw,  a  half-mile  away, 
[73] 


The  Steel  River 


a  huge  bull  moose  race  out  of  lily-pads  and 
disappear  in  the  forest  as  silent  as  a  wraith. 

There  was  no  luxury  of  revery  and  polite 
discussion  on  that  second  portage.  Bill 
said  it  was  "about  a  mile  and  a  quarter." 
But  there  was  no  wagon.  That  made  a 
difference.  Each  and  every  man  had  to 
carry.  Bill  himself  took  a  canoe,  a  couple 
of  blanket-rolls,  and  the  cooking  utensils. 
He  was  really  quite  mortified  when  we  pointed 
out  the  fact  that  his  left  ear  carried  no  burden, 
and  would  have  corrected  the  oversight,  had 
we  said  the  word.  A  "tunk-strap"  is  a 
vital  and  docile  agency  of  transportation, 
if  you  know  how  to  use  it,  to  put  it  across 
your  brow  to  steady  the  load  which  is  balanced 
cunningly  upon  your  back,  leaving  the  hands 
free  for  burdens  or  tumbles.  Jim  watched 
Bill  Fraser  load  up  and  said  it  was  all  ab- 
surdly simple.  He  insisted  upon  galloping 
off  into  the  greenwood  with  a  neat  little 
2OO-pound  pack  and  was  really  quite  peevish 
when  we  pruned  him  down  to  sixty.  First 
[74] 


Over-Zeal  and  Over-Sights 

he  began  sprinkling  cans  of  bacon  and  cups 
and  other  people's  wardrobes  and  bottles 
of  household  remedies  along  the  trail.  It 
made  trailing  Jim  an  exciting  sport  and  an 
exact  science,  but  it  was  taking  too  much 
time  for  salvage.  We  secured  his  pack  for 
him  and  heard  him  ask  himself  "how  much 

longer  the portage"  was.     Successively 

the  "tunk-strap"  dropped  to  his  eyes,  nose, 
mouth,  and  finally  to  his  Adam's-apple,  which 
shut  off  his  wind  and  forced  another  in- 
terruption of  the  whole  procession.  When 
Jim  staggered  to  the  final  opening  on  Moun- 
tain Lake  he  was  carrying  a  frying-pan  and  a 
fishing-rod  and  his  proud  spirit  and  breath 
were  entirely  gone. 

We  struck  Mountain  Lake  in  a  marsh.  I  '11 
never  quite  forgive  Mountain  Lake  for  that. 
It  was  showing  itself  at  such  needless  and 
unfair  disadvantage.  I  think  that  is  the 
only  marsh  on  Mountain  Lake  and  we  had 
to  flounder  in  the  ooze  and  silt  to  load  the 
canoes.  Perhaps  Mountain  Lake  was  merely 
[75] 


The  Steel  River 


showing  sound  theatrical  sense  in  delaying 
the  dramatic  disclosure  of  the  splendors  to 
come.  Around  the  first  bend  it  burst  upon 
us — and  stunned  us.  Lakes  George  and 
Placid,  what  perfunctory  millponds  in  your 
smug  exquisiteness  you  are  compared  to  this 
rugged  goddess  of  the  wilds — Mountain  Lake! 

An  ellipse  of  lapis-lazuli  is  Mountain  Lake, 
wonderfully  blue  when  the  sun  sparkles  and 
buried  deeply  in  a  wonderful  setting  of  moun- 
tains. Such  mountains !  In  some  places  the 
ascent  is  gradual,  up  heavily  wooded  slopes. 
In  other  places  blood-red  precipices  rise  sheer 
from  the  water.  One  mountain  has  split. 
Half  has  tumbled  into  the  lake  and  the  wall 
that  remains  outlines  a  giant,  sinister  Indian 
profile.  Our  Indian  Joe  contemplated  it 
with  visible  awe.  After  all,  the  real  red  man 
is  still  worshipping  his  gods  in  the  forest,  the 
rocks,  the  winds,  and  the  heavens. 

There  can  be  troublesome  seas  for  a  canoe 
on  Mountain  Lake.  It  is  nine  miles  long 
and  averages,  perhaps,  a  mile  and  a  half 
[76] 


"The  Tragic  Isolation  of  that  Lighthouse!" 


De  Profundis 


in  width.  The  wind  was  rising,  and  a 
head-wind,  before  we  had  paddled  the  two 
overladen  canoes  a  mile. 

Relieved  from  his  "spell"  of  paddling,  the 
Camp  Boss,  never  for  a  moment  idle  in  the 
all-too-short  play-day,  rigged  up  a  trolling- 
line  and  a  spinning-spoon  and  dropped  it 
into  the  blue  waters  in  the  canoe's  wake. 

The  Camp  Boss,  as  I  recall,  was  pointing 
to  a  gaunt  dead  pine  that  stood  sentinel  alone 
and  desolate  on  a  far  mountain- top,  when 
he  gave  a  muttered  exclamation  and  threat- 
ened to  go  backward  out  of  the  canoe.  In- 
stinctively, though,  he  jerked  and  set  the 
hook — in  something.  It  was  quite  something, 
too.  In  a  few  minutes  it  was  a  conjectural 
point  whether  the  something  was  going  to 
tow  the  canoe  and  three  men  back  to  the 
portage  or  the  canoe  tow  the  something  to  the 
camping-place. 

When  the  Camp  Boss  by  exercise  of  sheer 
biceps  had  hauled  in,  hand-over-hand,  about 
thirty  feet  of  line,  the  something  broke  water 
[77] 


The  Steel  River 


desperately  and  shook  its  imprisoned  gill 
in  the  air  and  we  saw  that  the  Camp  Boss 
had  a  husky  namaycush  of  about  five 
pounds. 

It  is  about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  the 
portage-entry  to  Mountain  Lake  to  the 
point  where  the  lower  Steel  rushes  out  of  it 
Superior- ward.  There  we  beached  the  canoes, 
climbed  the  high  bank  to  a  clearing,  made  by 
Bill  Fraser  for  the  purpose,  and  made  camp 
in  the  roar  of  the  falls.  As  we  came  ashore 
we  saw  trout — heavens  such  trout — leaping 
for  flies  in  the  oil-smooth  water  at  the  jaws 
of  the  rapids. 

Camp-making  was  hurried  and  perfunc- 
tory, I  confess.  We  slapped  up  three  tents 
on  poles,  which  had  offered  other  parties 
the  same  excellent  service.  We  left  Indian 
Joe  to  cut  balsam  for  our  beds,  and  Camp 
Cook  Arthur  to  rig  up  his  tripod  and  dig 
bacon  and  bread  and  coffee  from  the  chaos  of 
Bill  Eraser's  portaging.  We  drew  rods  from 
cases  with  palsied  fingers,  wet  leader-boxes, 
[78] 


An  Occasional  Swirling  Pool 

and  brought  forth  great  gaudy  flies,  which 
Bill  Fraser  immediately  and  sternly  re- 
jected. He  made  us  take  staid  Montreals, 
brown  and  black  Hackles,  demure  Jenny 
Linds,  with  an  infrequent  Parmachenee  Belle 
for  contrast.  We  divided.  Bill  Fraser  took 
Jim  and  the  Camp  Boss  down  the  rapids 
to  the  "Stretch,"  a  rioting  mill-race  with 
an  occasional  swirling  pool  in  it. 

Marv.  and  Bill  and  I  went  to  the  point 
where  Mountain  -Lake  first  begins  to  rip- 
ple and  murmur  in  the  clutch  of  the  falls, 
/he  first  cast  brought  an  answering  gleam 
of  a  silvery,  sinewy  little  body.  Then  the 
"strike"  and  the  thrill  that  runs  along  the 
line  from  a  hook  well  "set."  Bill  has  one. 
Marv.'s  shout  of  congratulation  is  choked 
by  troubles  of  his  own.  There  is  no  aux- 
iliary hand  to  man  the  landing-net.  Three 
men  stand  side  by  side  upon  the  rocks  and 
simultaneously  play  three  fish — four  fish,  as  a 
matter  of  fact;  Bill  had  a  double.  We  called 
it  off  when  we  had  killed  enough  for  the  camp- 
[79] 


The  Steel  River 


dinner  and  enough  for  the  camp-breakfast, 
however  the  Camp  Boss  and  Jim  and  Bill 
Fraser  might  be  faring  down  the  "Stretch" 
— for  we  had  found  the  place  of  monster- 
trout  and  many  days  very  golden  were  ahead 
of  us. 

The  sun  was  dropping  behind  the  moun- 
tains and  Mountain  Lake  was  a  mirror  of 
bewildering  splendors  when  Cook  Art.  an- 
nounced the  trout  and  coffee  and  fried  po- 
tatoes ready  for  the  table.  The  Camp  Boss 
and  Jim  and  Bill  Fraser  had  not  come.  Bill 
— who  by  the  way  was  distinguished  from 
Bill  Fraser  as  Exotic  Bill,  while  the  latter 
was  characterized  as  Indigenous  Bill — vol- 
unteered to  go  down  the  trail  and  "hurry 
'em  up."  As  Exotic  Bill  had  never  seen 
the  trail  before,  I  had  my  doubts  as  to  the 
efficacy  of  the  hurrying-up.  But  Bill  went. 

He  had  been  gone  about  ten  minutes,  when 

Camp   Boss   and   Jim   and   Indigenous   Bill 

came    in — by    a    "short-cut."     Then    Jim 

volunteered  to  find  Bill.     He  had  been  gone 

[80] 


Somebody's  Birthday 


about  fifteen  minutes  when  Bill  came  back 
quite  apprehensive  for  the  safety  of  the 
Camp  Boss,  Jim,  and  Bill  Fraser.  Meanwhile 
the  trout  were  blackening  and  charring 
nicely  and  night  was  dropping  gingerly  as 
the  north-night  does  drop.  "You  all  sit  on 
this  here  one,"  said  Bill  Fraser  firmly, 
indicating  Exotic  Bill,  "and  I  '11  go  and  snare 
the  other.  Hide-and-seek's  good  fun,  except 
when  you  ain't  had  nothing  to  eat  since 
sun-up."  And  Jim,  explaining  garrulously, 
was  led  in  by  the  hand  when  there  was  little 
left  of  ten  pounds  of  trout — but  the  aroma. 
It  was  somebody's  birthday  that  night  in 
camp.  Almost  anybody  would  agree  to 
have  a  birthday  on  Mountain  Lake.  The 
idea,  I  think,  was  suggested  by  Cook  Art.'s 
discovery  of  a  bottle  of  Scotch  in  the  potato- 
sack.  Nobody  knew  how  it  got  there,  and 
Bill  Fraser  who  had  carried  that  sack  over 
the  portage  was  ominously  eager  to  find  out 
how  it  got  there.  However,  Bill  Fraser  has 
the  ready  adaptability  and  forgiveness  of 
[81] 


The  Steel  River 


the  wilderness.  Marv.  was  quite  positive 
that  it  was  his  birthday.  We  gathered 
tin  cups  and  spring-water  and  stood  about 
the  fire,  conscious  that  it  was  an  impressive 
and  ceremonious  sort  of  a  tableau  vivant. 
Bill  Fraser  insisted  that  each  one  "fill  up" 
before  he  poured  his  own  libation.  We  were 
all  impressed  with  this  pretty  courtesy  on 
Bill  Eraser's  part,  the  wilderness  host,  and 
respected  his  wishes.  We  expected  a  toast 
of  unusual  feeling  and  eloquence,  or  some- 
thing like  that.  "All  got  a  drink? "asked 
Bill  Fraser,  glancing  around  the  expectant 
group.  "All  right — just  a  minute,"  and 
Indigenous  Bill  beamingly  took  at  a  gulp 
what  was  left  in  the  bottle,  about  three 
hands  high,  I  should  think. 

Bill  Fraser  explained  afterward  that  that 
was  what  he  always  did  when  he  "got  wet 
and  didn't  have  no  extry  clothes  along  for 
a  change." 

Exotic  Bill  and  Jim  retired  to  their  tent, 
promising  each  other  to  rise  with  the  sun. 
[82] 


"Jim  Talked  Little  at  the  Camp-Fire  that  Night." 


The  Day  after  the  Banquet 

One  was  to  "take  a  canoe  and  explore  the 
lake  before  breakfast"  and  the  other  planned 
delightedly  to  spring  all-rosy  from  his 
slumbers  and  "dive  off  the  rocks." 

At  seven  A.M.,  after  ten  minutes  of  riot 
and  rough-house,  we  succeeded  in  hauling 
them  from  their  balsam-beds. 

A  surprising  and  exasperating  condition 
confronted  us  when  the  next  morning  we 
advanced  upon  falls,  rapids,  and  pools  of  the 
Steel.  The  water  had  been  abnormally  high 
for  days.  Indigenous  Bill  had  noticed  and 
pointed  it  out  and  feared  for  the  result. 
However,  the  voraciousness  of  the  trout 
the  night  before  had  quieted  Bill's  fears. 
But  now  in  the  morning  the  thing  had  hap- 
pened. The  high  water  had  brought  down 
flies  and  grubs  in  myriads  from  the  uplands. 
The  trout  had  fed  their  fill.  That  was  what 
they  were  doing  last  night.  Now  they  were 
gorged.  We  were  chagrined  and  hurt.  In- 
digenous Bill  was  profane.  We  tried  flies 
sober  enough  to  appeal  to  the  most  ascetic 
[83] 


The  Steel  River 


of  trout  and  flies  gaudy  and  giddy  enough 
to  delight  the  most  frivolous  trout  in  the 
whole  democracy  of  the  Steel.  Nothing 
whatever  doing.  I  fell  a  victim  to  despair. 
I  waded  out,  waist  deep,  to  a  rock  in  the 
centre  of  a  pool,  with  the  maelstrom  about 
me,  and  deliberately  and  shamelessly  cast 
with  a  "spinner."  The  Camp  Boss  shouted 
fisherman's  ethics  and  morals  and  epithets 
and  curses  from  the  bank — while  I  caught 
three  inquisitive,  betrayed  trout  for  luncheon. 
I  submit  that  the  most  ethical  and  punctil- 
ious of  fishermen  must  eat.  In  the  afternoon 
we  teased,  cajoled,  insinuated,  and  bullied 
enough  trout  out  of  the  water  for  dinner. 
And,  be  it  to  the  everlasting  glory  of  fisher- 
manly  ethics  and  morals  and  methods,  it 
was  the  Camp  Boss  who  did  it.  He  would 
locate  a  trout  and  bombard  him  with  casts, 
with  an  infinitude  of  flies  and  angles  and 
subtle  invitations,  until  the  trout  in  utter 
exasperation  would  rush  at  the  tangible 
evidence  of  his  mysterious  tormentor  and 
[84] 


PQ 
a 


Mere  Man 


hang  himself.  The  rest  of  the  camp  would 
play  draw-poker  with  pine-cones  for  an  hour 
or  so  and  then  come  back  and  cheer  the 
Camp  Boss. 

The  next  morning  we  were  ready  for  less 
epicurean  trout  and  the  upper  waters  of 
this  wild  river.  We  cached  everything  we 
should  n't  need  for  five  days.  We  had  to 
tear  Jim's  waders  and  bath-gown  out  of  his 
hands  by  force.  He  even  promised  to  wear 
them  over  the  portages,  if  necessary.  But  we 
had  seen  Jim  on  a  portage.  Pretty  nearly 
due  north  we  paddled  for  four  miles  beneath 
frowning  precipices,  amid  the  oppressive  si- 
lence of  that  grandeur  which  seems  not  at 
all  to  care  for  the  presence  and  applause 
of  the  puniest  thing  in  the  wilderness — to 
wit,  mere  man. 

Then  the  mouth  of  the  upper  Steel  opened 
out  suddenly.  It  looks  much  like  the  mouth 
at  Lake  Superior,  sand  and  pebbles  on  both 
banks.  Evidently  it  overflows  its  banks 
mightily  in  the  spring  and  great  deluges, 
[85] 


The  Steel  River 


carrying  logs  and  brush,  come  roaring  down, 
for  the  trees  keep  their  distance  respectfully 
fifty  feet  from  the  water's  edge. 

As  we  paddled  up,  a  caribou  lifted  a 
dripping  nose  from  the  water  and  dashed 
away  silently  into  the  dense  cover.  There 
is  surprisingly  little  current  here  and,  even 
with  canoes  laden  with  seven  men  and  much 
grub,  we  swept  along  rapidly. 

A  stupid  partridge  stood  upon  a  log  and 
stared  at  us  in  sheer  bewilderment  that  was 
quite  irresistible.  She  went  into  the  pot 
that  night. 

There  are  two  portages  to  make,  both 
around  log-jams,  one  of  a  mile  and  a  half 
and  the  other  of  a  half-mile.  Jim  was  un- 
expectedly temperate  and  unambitious. 

Again  the  delight  of  the  camp.  We  had 
all  paddled  and  carried  and  waded  that  day. 
The  roar  of  the  upper  falls  smote  our  ex- 
pectant ears  after  scarcely  two  hours'  paddling 
next  morning.  Lakes,  many  lakes,  there  are 
beyond.  And  many  fish,  mighty  fish.  I 
[86] 


I 


Down  Smiling  Waters 

say  seven-pounders  firmly  and  with  an  honest 
thrill  of  achievement  and  proof  of  photo- 
graphic record.  Below  we  came  upon  huge 
rainbow  trout  or  "hammerheads, "  which,  I 
believe,  never  get  above  the  first  falls. 

We  were  at  the  headwaters  of  one  of 
Superior's  mightiest  rivers  and  the  least 
known  and  wildest  of  them  all.  There  is  a 
thrill,  perhaps  a  vainglorious  and  theatric 
sort  of  a  thrill,  in  the  realization  that  you 
are  standing  where  no  man,  save  the  original 
owner,  the  Indian,  has  ever  stood  before. 
We  were  far  from  and  high  above  Lake  Su- 
perior and  there  were  ahead  of  us  the  leisurely 
drift  down  smiling  waters  and  two  weeks  in 
which  to  fish,  laugh,  dream,  and  drink  the 
delights  of  the  wilderness  proffered  in  brim- 
ming measure  only  to  him  who,  clean  and 
light  of  heart,  seeks  them. 

After  all,  it  is  much  as  Exotic  Bill  said  of 
it: — "Journeys  end  in  the  achievement's 
greeting." 


[87] 


CHAPTER  V 


A  GOOD  deal  like  Sinbad  carrying  the 
Old  Man  of  the  Sea  did  the  ambitious 
little  steamer  Caribou  look  when  she  got 
our  Wagush  II  aboard.  Generations  of 
Gloucester  fishermen  had  demonstrated  the 
amazing  sea-worth  of  Wagush  II.  She  was 
twenty-eight  feet  long,  pointed  of  nose,  high  of 
freeboard,  and  duck-like  in  buoyancy.  Her 
twelve  horse-power  gasoline-engine  gave  her 
the  strength  of  her  convictions  and  a  sixteen- 
foot  Mackinaw  tow-boat  served  to  repress  her 
youthful  enthusiasm. 

The  shark-nose  of  Wagush  II  protruded 
from  the  starboard  gangway  of  the  Caribou 
and  four  feet  of  stern  dangled  dizzily  out 
of  the  port  gangway. 

[88] 


Superior  Smiled 


A  captain  with  misgivings  and  a  crew  with 
rich  lake-oaths  had  blocked  her  in.  Thus 
burdened,  the  Caribou  had  staggered  all  day 
and  all  night  northward,  along  the  east 
shore  of  Lake  Superior.  And  Superior  smiled 
all  day  and  all  night,  which  was  good,  be- 
cause had  Superior  frowned  or  bristled  up 
or  raged,  Wagush  II  must  have  slid  nose- 
first  or  propeller-first  into  the  depths  and 
gone  to  the  reefs  crewless  and  alone. 

Through  the  starlit  night  the  captain  and 
we  watched  anxiously  for  clouds,  for  the 
swift,  sudden  winds  that  herald  a  tantrum 
of  that  capricious  inland  goddess.  Dawn 
came  and  the  smile  of  saturnine  Superior 
broadened  into  a  laugh. 

Day  broke  as  we  steamed  through  the 
gaunt  portal-rocks  of  the  harbor  on  Michi- 
pocoten  Island.  We  were  130  miles  north 
of  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie,  at  the  granite  heart 
of  the  land  of  vacation-dreams. 

Alexander  Henry,  Esq.,  hardy  and  nervy 
old  explorer,  visited  Michipocoten  Island  in 
[89] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

1769  and,  in  his  book,  he  leaves  a  quaint 
record  of  his  impressions.  It  was  then 
Isle  de  Maurepas.  The  Indians  shunned  it 
for  the  soundly  satisfying  reason  that  they 
thought  it  peopled  with  huge  snakes.  Sands 
of  gold  were  said  to  be  upon  its  shores,  hence, 
too,  the  "Island  of  Yellow  Sands,"  and 
once,  when  Indians  had  filled  their  canoe 
with  gold,  a  great  Savage  Spirit  rushed  out 
upon  them,  and  waded  fathoms-deep  in 
pursuit,  until  they  threw  their  booty  into 
the  water.  Alexander  Henry,  Esq.,  himself 
seemed  half  to  believe  it. 

If  it  had  seemed  a  tussle  to  load  Wagush  II 
aboard  at  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie  with  all 
the  appurtenances  of  freight-handling,  it  now 
proved  the  merest  romp  contrasted  to  the 
work  of  unloading  Wagush  II  on  the  fish-dock 
at  Michipocoten  Island.  First,  we  found 
the  dock  too  low  and  we  built  it  up.  Then 
we  found  the  wall  of  the  freight-house  too 
high  and  we  knocked  it  down.  We  had 
toted  that  dory  too  many  hundreds  of  miles 
[90] 


Wagush  II  Hauled  us  along  320  Miles  of  Superior's 
Shore-Line. " 


North  along  the  Shore 

to  stop  at  anything  so  trivial  as  demolishing 
a  warehouse. 

We  conscripted  the  Caribou's  crew  and  the 
fishing-crew  and  the  two  cooks  and  a  chamber- 
maid and  all  the  able-bodied  passengers. 
The  launch  of  a  real  "Dreadnought"  could 
have  been  attended  with  popular  elation  no 
more  vociferous  and  genuine.  We  were 
"going  north" — along  the  shore — whither 
the  wind  listed,  where  the  fishing  was  good. 
That  was  all  we  said — because  that  was  all 
we  knew — and  wanted  to  know.  We  had 
tackle,  flies,  grub,  gasoline,  a  month  of 
liberty,  and  Superior  was  smiling.  The  man 
who  would  ask  for  more  belongs  not  in  the 
wilderness.  We  were  off  amid  cargoes  of 
nondescript  duffel — and  cheers. 

Usually,  in  a  tale  so  fragmentary,  the 
personnel  brings  neither  distinction  nor  clar- 
ity; generally  naught  but  contradictions 
and  remorse  for  the  author.  But  the  per- 
sonnel cannot  honestly  be  dodged  here. 

The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
[91] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats " 

nology  gave  us  our  "  chief  -engineer, "  Marv., 
a  father-confessor  of  frail  gasoline-engines. 
The  Camp  Boss,  of  course,  manned  the 
wheel.  Navigating-officer,  sage  of  the  men- 
dacious charts,  was  Bill.  Second-engineer 
unanimously  went  to  Jim,  maker  of  auto- 
mobiles and  debonair  in  overalls.  Keeper 
of  the  Log,  camera,  scientific  data,  and  other 
men's  consciences  was  I  and  I  rode  in  the 
dory,  at  that.  In  the  tow-boat  was  our  red 
brother  of  the  wilderness  for  now  these  many 
years,  Joe  Cadotte,  Chippewa  gentleman, 
very  gentle;  and,  with  him,  Art.,  the  camp 
cookee,  and  gallons  of  gasoline  and  huge 
tumuli  of  "eats." 

The  harbor  cuts  into  the  south  side  of 
Michipocoten  Island,  at  about  its  middle, 
and  the  island  is,  approximately,  fifteen  miles 
long  and  eight  miles  wide.  But  we  must  go 
due  north  to  strike  the  main  shore  of  Superior 
and  a  semi-circumnavigation  was  the  only 
way.  Still  the  great  lake  smiled.  Skirting, 
just  missing  the  treacherous  reefs,  the  south, 
[92] 


A  Dash  for  Shelter 


east,  and,  then,  north  shores  of  Michipocoten 
Island,  we  made  the  twenty-four  miles  and 
went  ashore  for  lunch  at  noon.  And  we  were 
"invited  out  to  lunch,"  too.  At  the  harbor, 
as  we  started,  two  mining  engineers  had  come 
to  us  and  asked  us  for  a  "lift."  They  had 
walked  across  the  island  the  day  before  for 
their  mail — think  if  that  mail  had  proved  to 
be  bills  and  advertisements!  And  one  had 
wrenched  his  ankle  on  the  rough  trail.  They 
were  diamond-drilling  for  copper — and  they 
subsequently  struck  it,  too,  we  heard.  For 
the  transportation  they  entertained  us  lav- 
ishly. We  got  to  know  these  two  lonely 
men  intimately  in  a  half-day,  and  then — the 
way  of  those  wilderness-meetings  and  friend- 
ships— we  waved  them  farewell,  in  all  human 
probability  never  to  see  them  again. 

We  had  serious  things  to  do  and  lots  of 
them,  to  wit — make  that  eleven-mile  dash 
across  the  strip  of  Lake  Superior  that  sep- 
arated us  from  the  main  shore  and  make  it, 
while  Superior  still  smiled,  in  time  to  find 
[93] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

shelter  and  make  our  first  camp  for  the  night. 
The  prospectors  directed  us  to  head  due 
north  and  run  into  Pilot  Harbor,  the  nearest 
hospitable  point  on  the  rocky  main  shore. 

We  bowled  along  on  the  long,  oily  swell, 
for  about  five  miles.  Wagush's  two  cylin- 
ders sang  a  tuneful  rhythm.  Joe  steered 
the  tow-boat  and  Cookee  Art.  delved  into 
sacks  and  boxes  and  inventoried  the  culinary 
equipment  with  which  for  four  weeks  he 
must  meet  the  corporeal  needs  of  six  chron- 
ically ravenous  men. 

Then,  as  though  a  gray  mantle  of  oblivion 
had  been  dropped  over  the  landscape,  the 
fog-banks  blew  in  from  Lake  Superior  and 
blotted  out  the  shore  before  and  behind  us. 
True,  we  had  the  compass  and  the  course 
was  unmistakable — due  north.  But  it  was 
all  like  sailing  for  eternity  upon  the  air.  The 
needle  held  straight,  but  we  seemed  to  be 
swinging  somehow  always  to  port.  Visions  of 
sailing  out  into  Lake  Superior  with  land  and 
safety  so  close  but  screened  from  us  oppressed 
[94] 


A  Swallow  and  a  Surprise 

us.  It  seemed  too  long.  We  should  have 
made  eleven  miles  straightaway  before  this. 
It  was  unpleasant  —  very  —  and  vacation- 
exuberance  for  fifteen  minutes,  there,  went 
ebbing. 

The  Camp  Boss  saw  a  swallow  in  the 
vapor  about  us.  Then  suddenly  the  whole 
North  Shore,  great  ridges,  towering  rocks, 
spruces  and  pines  and  birches  sprang  out 
upon  us  with  a  gaunt  sentinel-rock  dead- 
ahead  and  scarcely  fifty  feet  away.  Marv. 
jumped  to  the  throttle.  Wagush  II  checked, 
stopped,  and  backed  out  of  the  ambush  and 
we  reconnoitred.  We  had  the  North  Shore, 
anyway,  and  it  was  a  good  thing  to  hang 
onto.  As  the  navigating  officer  said,  it 
was  "no  time  to  play  hunches  in  that  fog." 
If  Pilot  Harbor  had  any  sense  of  fitness,  it 
should  be  in  "the  heart  of  the  business  dis- 
trict" somewhere  and  the  only  discreet  way 
to  find  it  was  to  tiptoe  along  the  coast, 
feeling  it  out  inch  by  inch  until  we  should 
find  Pilot  Harbor.  When  Wagush  pulled 
[951 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

her  nose  out  of  destruction,  Joe's  boat  came 
up  indignantly  and  bumped  us,  but  it  merely 
up-ended  Cookee  Art.  who  had  his  head  in 
the  bread-tin  at  the  moment. 

It  was  a  debatable  point  whether  Pilot 
Harbor  was  to  the  right  or  to  the  left.  We 
could  n't  separate.  In  that  fog  we  'd  never 
get  together  again.  We  turned  to  the  left — 
a  good,  sporty  guess — and  ran  under  a  check. 
We  were  certainly  going  through  an  opening 
— maybe  only  a  bay.  No — we  were  leaving 
the  lake,  all  right.  Then  an  opening  within 
an  opening  and  a  sharp  turn  to  the  right. 
There  wasn't  a  ripple  on  the  water  here. 

"Aren't  we  going  into  a  harbor?"  asked 
Second-Engineer  Jim. 

"We're  going  into  something,"  said  the 
Camp  Boss,  peering  ahead,  at  the  wheel. 
"I  can't  tell  whether  it's  a  harbor  or  a 
linen-closet."  Another  turn  and  then  a 
sand-beach!  Never  a  sand-beach  without  a 
harbor — and  we  knew  it!  We  had  blundered 
straight  into  Pilot  Harbor.  What  perils 
[96] 


Pilot  Harbor  Very  Good 

can  a  mere  fog  hold  for  a  launch  so  rich  in 
fool's  luck  as  that? 

There  isn't  much  in  Pilot  Harbor  but 
shelter  and  a  little  of  that  is  a  great  comfort 
when  you  're  coasting  Lake  Superior.  The 
making  of  the  first  camp  and  the  cooking 
of  the  first  camp-meal  always  bring  a  series 
of  panics.  " There's  no  bacon"  or  "They 
left  out  the  bread"  or  "We  can't  find  the 
kerosene  for  the  lanterns."  And  in  the 
end  they  all  miraculously  appear.  Of  course 
something  is  always  forgotten,  but  generally 
it  is  Jim's  hair-tonic  or  Billy's  hot-water 
bottle  suggested  by  a  too-doting  wife.  While 
we  napped  that  night,  Superior  quit  smiling 
and  tried  to  blow  the  tops  off  the  everlasting 
hills  and  Pilot  Harbor  felt  very  good. 

The  next  morning  the  Great  Spirit,  Nan-i- 
bou-jou,  again  enveloped  us  in  fog  to  stay 
our  departure.  But  as  Superior  was  pond- 
like  we  packed  up,  and  again,  under  check, 
felt  our  way  along.  We  kept  just  the  tree- 
tops  in  view  and  snooped  cautiously  in  and 

7  [971 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

out  of  bays,  until  we  almost  ran  into  the 
open  door  of  a  cook-shanty.  This  time  we 
had  bumped  into  a  pulp- wood  camp.  There  's 
a  good  river  there,  too,  the  Pukasaw,  or 
Puckoso.  The  maps  are  so  diffident  about 
their  spelling!  Twenty-foot  falls  there  take 
their  last  tumble  into  Lake  Superior.  While 
Joe  and  the  Cookee  made  camp,  we  took  a 
fisherman's  look  at  some  likely-looking  rocks 
at  the  river  mouth.  We  killed  enough  fish 
for  dinner  in  fifteen  minutes  and  as  many 
more  got  away  with  our  leaders.  In  reef 
fishing  on  Lake  Superior  there  is  no  telling 
when  one  may  cast  his  lines  in  pleasant 
places  or  a  colony  of  whales. 

The  making  and  breaking  of  two  camps 
had  already  brought  us  considerable  tech- 
nique. We  worked  in  crews  and  worked 
rapidly  until  it  came  to  the  necessity  of 
unpacking  a  whole  huge  bed-roll  to  find 
Jim's  watch  which  he  had  left  in  his  blankets. 
That 's  where  Jim  always  left  his  watch.  It 
became  a  permanent  and  sacred  institution 
[98! 


A  Smart  Wind 


and  on  camp-breaking  mornings  Bill's  first 
camp-task  was  to  take  Jim's  watch  out  of 
Jim's  blankets  and  tie  it  around  Jim's  neck 
in  a  double  bowline  knot.  Our  best  camp- 
breaking  record,  I  find  in  the  Log,  was 
twenty- two  minutes  from  flapjacks  to  full- 
speed-ahead  and  that  was  the  ripest  achieve- 
ment of  three  weeks'  training. 
.  Superior  was  again  smiling  and  unbefogged 
when  we  put  out  of  the  Puckoso  that  morning. 
The  black-flies  had  only  just  heard  that 
succulent  tenderfeet  were  theirs  for  the 
stinging  and  they  chased  us  half  a  mile  out 
in  the  lake.  We  had  picked  White  Spruce 
River  for  the  next  night-camp,  but  we  decided 
not  to  stop;  rather,  Superior  decided  that 
for  us.  A  smart  wind  from  the  southwest 
brought  a  smarter  sea  along  with  it.  Wagush 
was  game  for  it  and  equal  to  it.  But  Joe's 
heavily  loaded  tow-boat  was  not,  particularly 
the  way  the  Wagush  was  jerking  her  through 
the  seas.  Richardson's  Harbor  loomed  up 
opportunely.  Joe,  with  the  water  to  his 
[991 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

ankles,  sighted  it  first  and  vigorously  urged 
a  landing  party.  If  you  can  mentally  picture 
a  giant  T  cut  into  the  solid  rock  of  the  shore- 
line, you  can  mentally  picture  Richardson's 
Harbor.  When  we  found  the  harbor-mouth 
the  seas  playfully  boosted  us  in.  We  coasted 
around  this  unruffled  refuge.  A  deserted 
fishing-station  was  the  only  blemish  on 
the  scene  and  jumping  herring  gave  us  a 
sensation  until  we  found  them  herring. 

While  we  lunched  and  smoked  and  found 
moose-tracks,  Superior  thought  we  had  es- 
caped her  and  sullenly  subsided.  So  we 
looked  out  of  the  harbor-mouth  cautiously 
and  made  a  dash  for  it. 

Otter  Head  is  precisely  what  the  pioneer, 
in  his  keen  observation  and  nature-lore, 
saw  fit  to  call  it — the  head  of  a  huge  otter. 
You  can  see  it  for  fifty  miles  on  a  clear  day. 
We  did.  That  is,  Joe  did.  Joe  is  always 
seeing  and  hearing  things  first  and  then  we 
pretend  that  we  do — until  we  really  do. 
Then  the  lighthouse — the  tragic  isolation  of 
[ioo] 


Laughing  down   Gloomy  Canyons 

that  lone  lighthouse — loomed  up  around  the 
point — on  Otter  Island.  The  map  promised 
things  behind  that  island  and  the  promise 
was  kept  promptly,  richly. 

At  first,  we  thought  it  a  great  strip  of 
quartz  in  the  precipice.  Then  Joe  shouted, 
"Water-fall  over  dere,"  and  pointed.  The 
"Ninety-Foot  Falls"  were  taking  their  per- 
petual, "death-defying"  leap  in  to  the  lake! 
They  are  really  twin -falls.  The  Rideau 
River,  wearied  of  laughing  down  through 
gloomy  canyons,  just  passes  up  the  whole 
job — ninety  feet  up  there  on  the  cliff — and 
tells  its  water-children  to  shift  for  themselves. 
So  they  jump  over  the  brink  with  a  scream 
— and  feed  a  myriad  trout  below.  We 
stopped  there — naturally — and  fished.  I 
will  not  say  how  many  fish  came  gamily  to 
the  willing  net.  They  were  enough  to  feed 
us — that  was  all. 

At  the  foot  of  the  falls  we  had  another 
call.  It  is  curious  how  quickly  one  adapts 
one's  self  to  the  isolation  of  the  wilderness. 
[101] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

Two  days  out  and  the  sight  of  a  stranger, 
a  sail,  or  even  smoke  on  the  horizon  will 
precipitate  a  perfect  frenzy  of  curiosity.  I 
never  saw  a  man  who  craved  man's  com- 
panionship the  way  Captain  McMinimi, 
keeper  of  the  Otter  Head  light,  did.  He  had 
sighted  us  from  his  eyrie  and  came  skimming 
across  the  bay  in  a  thirty  foot  Mackinaw,  as 
trim  and  dainty  as  a  boat-builder's  "ad." 
He  had  seen  two  "tourists"  in  two  months. 
He  asked  about  George  Rex  and  Theodore 
Alleged-Rex  and  American  League  baseball 
and  the  Russo-Japanese  treaty.  It  was 
gratifying  to  find  an  audience  so  avid  and 
appreciative.  We  gave  him  salmon-flies,  a 
box  of  Jim's  cigars  (they  were  "out-of- 
door"  cigars  and  Jim  was  asleep),  and  a 
bottle  of  Scotch,  and,  in  return,  Captain 
McMinimi  charted  the  fishing-reefs  for  us 
and,  leading  the  way  in  his  natty  little  boat, 
piloted  us  to  harbor,  deep  down  Otter  Cove, 
where  we  made  camp.  He  scarcely  left  us 
for  two  days.  He  drank  in  the  news  of  the 
[102] 


Ninety-Foot  Falls." 


For  WP  Vmrl  Fnnnrl  flip  PLnrp  r»f  TVTnnQtpr  Trnuft" 


A  Battered  Hull 


world  and  the  conversation  and  jokes  of  the 
camp  in  long,  luxurious  draughts.  His  grati- 
tude for  mere  human  presence  was  pathetic. 
Last  fall  we  heard  again  of  Captain  McMinimi 
— our  host  at  Otter  Head.  It  was  a  dis- 
patch sent  out  by  some  lone  telegraph 
operator  in  the  Canadian  Pacific  station  at 
Heron  Bay.  Captain  McMinimi  had  set 
out — in  that  same  dainty  little  craft — for 
Heron  Bay  to  lay  in  his  fall  supplies.  He 
never  reached  there.  They  found — a  week 
later — a  battered  hull,  overturned  on  the 
rocks.  Inexorable  Superior  offers  a  certain 
grim  companionship  of  her  own. 

We  made  the  White  Gravel  River,  twenty- 
five  miles  from  Otter  Head,  in  a  half -day's 
run.  The  Swallow  and  White  Spruce — both 
excellent  streams  for  small  fish — we  passed  up 
temporarily.  The  weather  was  good  and  the 
need  of  making  time  oppressed  us.  But 
there  was  no  slighting  the  White  Gravel. 
Gentlemen-fishermen,  returning  joyously,  had 
told  us  of  its  pools  and  possibilities.  The 
[103] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

Log  and  the  chart  warned  Navigating  Officer 
Bill  that  we  must  be  abreast  of  it.  So  we 
checked  and  ran  nearer  shore  to  reconnoitre. 
It 's  a  fad  of  Superior  rivers  to  hide  their 
mouths  behind  sand-bars.  They  're  very 
coy  about  it.  We  'd  learned  to  be  in- 
quisitive. Else  we  had  missed  the  White 
Gravel.  The  actual  outlet  was  just  wide 
and  deep  enough — through  the  riffle — to 
admit  the  Wagush  to  the  good  shelter  of  the 
inner  basin. 

We  poled  in  cautiously,  too,  because  we 
knew  THEY  were  there.  You  can  never 
mistake  the  river-water  that  is  colored  like 
wine-jelly.  That  means  fish.  While  Joe 
and  Cookee  Art,  cut  tent-poles  and  balsam 
and  a  tripod,  we  moored  the  launch  and 
stepped  out  upon  the  sandy  shore  of  that 
amber-filled  basin  to  cast.  THEY,  too, 
craved  human  society,  even  as  Captain 
Me  Minimi  had  craved  it.  Jim — the  Log 
says — caught  his  first  trout  there.  He  had 
fished  for  bass  and  pike,  possibly  muscallonge, 
[104] 


g, 

tL, 


fe'S 
£.3 

IS 
0 


i 


Comforted  by  Kas-kas-ka-nig-gee 

and  was  rather  inclined  to  be  patronizing 
in  a  trouters'  discussion.  It  was  n't  such 
a  lunker — about  three  pounds — but  Jim 
gave  all  the  premonitory  symptoms  of 
apoplexy  when  that  trout  struck  and  broke 
water  and  he  talked  little  and  in  hushed 
whispers  at  the  camp-fire  that  night. 

Two  miles  up  the  White  Gravel  River  is 
a  pool,  circular,  dark,  deep,  and  peopled  with 
darting  shadows.  We  fished  it  in  the  per- 
functory, impious  way  that  men  fish  all 
pools,  when  they  are  pressed  for  time  and 
"must  reach  the  falls" — by  some  law  of 
stupid  impatience — up  and  beyond.  I  took 
a  look  at  that  font  of  mystery  and  said, 
"  On  to  Hudson's  Bay,  if  you  will,  mad  Cook 
Tourists.  Here  I  set  me  down  and  dream." 
So  the  others  climbed  around  the  falls  and 
plunged  on.  Oh — insatiable  god  of  curi- 
osity! They  had  taken,  maybe,  a  half- 
dozen  exquisite  swarthy  fish  from  that  pool. 
I  smoked  two  pipes  and  took  a  picture.  And 
the  little  kas-kas-ka-nig-gee  bird  ("my  little 
[105] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats" 

silver- throated  friend")  talked  to  me.  Then 
the  trout  had  cooled  off.  They  thought  the 
Great  Peril  had  passed.  They  came  cau- 
tiously out  of  their  asylums  in  the  rocks, 
from  beneath  sunken  logs.  They  were  again 
self-confident  wild  things,  searching  their 
prey.  I  cast  carefully — where  the  others 
had  not  cast — and  instantly  the  ripples  took 
the  food-news,  the  dinner-call,  about  that 
pool  and  the  carnival  was  on.  I  had  a  little 
net,  a  spineless,  maddening  implement  such 
as  cunning  sporting-goods  men  make  and 
blundering  tenderfeet  buy.  I  got  "doubles" 
and,  twice,  a  "triple"  and  each  time  that 
net,  that  instrument  of  commercial  avarice, 
would  buckle  or  turn  turtle.  I  shouted  for 
help.  But  only  the  falls  and  sympathetic 
kas-kas-ka-nig-gee,  who  understood,  answered 
me.  I  '11  remember  that  pool  and  the 
creel-full  they  made. 

A   curious  phenomenon  was  materialized 
to   dash  our  hopes  when  we  arrived,   suc- 
cessively, at  the  Big  Pic  and  Little  Pic  rivers. 
[106) 


Little  Pic  and  Great  Chagrin 


It  was  down  the  Big  Pic — then  the  Pijiti< 
that  the  French  descended  from  Hudson's 
Bay  in  1750  where  they  had  plundered  and 
slaughtered  a  factory  of  those  hardy  wilder- 
ness-adventurers. We  found  mud,  beautiful, 
yellow,  liquid  mud.  The  two  rivers  were 
breaking  all  midsummer  records  for  high 
water.  The  reef  fishing  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Little  Pic,  reputed  to  be  about  the  best 
on  Lake  Superior,  was  out  of  business  for 
a  month  at  least.  Disconsolately  we  cranked 
the  Wagush  and  moved  on. 

The  Log  shows  160  miles  covered  in  Wagush 
and  Joe's  tow-boat  in  that  trip  up  the  shore, 
begun  at  Michipocoten  Island.  There  the 
tyranny  of  the  calendar  showed  its  hydra- 
head  and  certain  inquisitive  telegrams  from 
forgotten  offices  awaited  us  at  the  first 
Canadian  Pacific  station  where  we  called 
for  two-weeks-old  mail.  So  we  were  coasting 
back  along  the  North  Shore.  We  had  to  go 
to  Michipocoten  Harbor,  on  the  mainland, 
this  time  to  catch  the  steamer.  There  is 
[107] 


"No  Landing  for  Boats " 

an  ore-carrying  railroad  there  and  a  steam 
crane.  We  had  to  have  that  crane.  It  was 
easy  enough  to  slide  the  Wagush  into  the 
water,  but  a  very  different  matter  to  lift 
her  and  her  good  ton  of  avoirdupois  out  of 
the  water. 

It 's  feasible  only  to  name  those  exquisite, 
lonely  little  streams  which  we  sighted  on 
that  return  cruise  and  found  it  not  in  our 
hearts  to  slight.  They  were  the  White 
Spruce,  Swallow,  Pike,  Ghost,  Eagle,  Dog, 
Mountain  Ash,  Pickerel,  and  a  half-dozen 
others  which  the  map  refuses  to  dignify 
with  names  at  all,  but  which,  nevertheless, 
are  peopled  with  trout-folk.  Once  the  com- 
mutator-shaft went  ailing.  Where  we  went 
ashore  to  diagnose  the  malady  there  was  a 
stream,  twenty  feet  wide  and,  maybe,  four 
feet  deep.  Billy,  knowing  little  about  com- 
mutator-shafts and  much  about  trout,  cast 
instead  of  tinkering.  We  heard  his  frantic 
shouts  for  a  net.  Of  course  the  net  was  stowed 
beneath  everything  else  in  the  launch.  And 
[108] 


No  Landing  for  Sea-Gulls 

Billy,  netless  and  single-handed,  drew  a 
four-pound  trout  out  on  the  beach. 

It  enjoyed  a  highly  dramatic  climax,  that 
cruise.  There  is  a  stretch  of  the  coast,  of 
eleven  miles,  between  Point  Isacor  and  Boat 
Harbor,  which  the  map  frankly  declares  to 
be  "No  landing  for  boats."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it's  no  landing  for  sea-gulls.  The 
shore  rises  straight  out  of  the  water  and 
towers  aloft  dizzily  from  100  to  250  feet. 
Of  course,  we  knew  of  that  stretch  and  planned 
to  get  as  near  it  as  possible,  wait  for  daylight 
and  calm  water,  and  make  a  dash  for  safety 
on  the  other  side.  Very  cunning  and  far- 
sighted  in  her  cunning,  however,  is  Lake 
Superior.  She  pretty  nearly  had  us — for 
all  our  caution  and  strategems. 

We  had  been  storm-bound  for  three  days 
in  Otter  Cove.  A  gale  from  the  southwest 
raved  and  dared  us.  Time  for  the  sailing 
of  the  steamer  from  Michipocoten  Harbor 
was  drawing  perilously  near.  The  fourth 
moining  we  were  up  before  dawn.  The  day 
[109] 


No  Landing  for  Boats 


promised  fair.  There  was  no  wind.  The 
sea  was  still  high,  but  promised  to  subside 
if  the  wind  kept  off.  We  planned  to  make 
Ghost  River  where  the  river-basin,  we  were 
told,  would  offer  shelter  for  the  launch,  camp 
there  over  night,  and  then  have  a  day  to 
race  past  "the  bad  lands." 

Three  times  that  day  the  seas  drove  us 
ashore.  Joe's  boat  wallowed  and  once  was 
half -swamped.  We  would  bail  out,  dry  off 
and  warm  up  about  a  drift-wood  fire,  and 
try  it  again.  Steadily  the  sea  had  been 
rising  and  the  weather  thickening  when 
we  reached  Ghost  River,  thirty- two  miles 
from  Otter  Head,  just  at  dusk,  beneath 
lowering  skies.  Giant  seas  were  racing  in, 
with  their  crests  crowned  with  wind-spray. 

And  we  found  Ghost  River  choked  with 
sand  and  no  shelter! 

It  was  a  nasty  mess.     We  could  n't  stay 

here.     A   hard   blow   was   coming,    straight 

into  that  bay.     We  could  n't  go  back  ten 

miles  or  so  to  harbors  we  had  passed.     The 

FIIO! 


Hatless  from  the  Green  Abyss 

quartering  seas  would  swamp  us.  And  the 
eleven  miles  of  "No  landing  for  boats," 
of  hungry  reefs  and  dizzy  precipices,  were 
ahead  of  us.  And  night  and  a  gale  were 
hurrying  along  together. 

We  held  a  hurried  consultation.  We 
looked  to  Joe,  when  we  had  decided,  and  Joe 
said,  "Let's  go  on — Quick."  We  went 
"quick."  When  we  swung  out  into  it  again, 
green  water  came  into  our  laps  in  barrels 
and  we  looked  anxiously  astern  until  we  saw 
Joe  and  Art.  emerge  hatless  from  the  green 
abyss.  Then  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter  no 
man  spoke  except  in  sharp  monosyllables; 
but  just  looked  at  his  watch  and  then  out 
lakeward  whence  the  gale  and  green-moun- 
tains were  coming.  Twice  the  tow-line 
snapped  and  we  rounded-to  in  the  smother 
and  picked  up  Joe's  wallowing  boat  and  its 
pallid  crew.  Marv.  hovered  over  the  gasoline 
engine  as  a  mother  over  a  sick  child  and 
watched  its  every  breath  with  a  mouth  full 
of  heart.  Had  the  engine  faltered  in  that 
[ml 


"No  Landing  for  Boats  " 

sea  and  gale  beating  on  a  rock-bound  coast — 
But  it  was  n't  fun  thinking  about  it. 

We  could  scarcely  make  out  the  mouth 
of  Boat  Harbor  in  the  blackness  and  the 
surf.  We  had  to  take  a  chance.  It  looked 
like  a  harbor.  We  couldn't  weather  it 
much  more  than  a  half -hour  longer,  anyway. 

"  Here  goes, "  said  the  Camp  Boss.  "  Hang 
on — as  long  as  you  can,  fellows." 

And  he  put  the  wheel  hard-over.  Superior 
picked  us  up  and  smacked  us  down  in  the 
centre  of  Boat  Harbor.  We  hurdled  the 
harbor-mouth,  that  was  all.  We  were  flung 
into  shelter  and  a  good  camp-site  and  warming 
drinks  and  a  ten  o'clock  dinner.  Superior 
had  had  her  brutal  prank  with  us  and  grown 
bored.  The  next  morning  Superior  was 
smiling  again  and  in  the  smile  we  saw  the 
smoke  of  the  Caribou.  After  all,  smoke  is 
about  the  fulfilment  and  the  end  of  all 
earthly  things — even  vacation-dreams. 


[112] 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  THE  TROUT  DEMOCRACY  AND  REEFS  OF 
CHIPPEWA  HARBOR 

THE  very  best  that  I  can  do  is  to  say 
that  all  this  happened  on  the  east- 
north  shore  of  Lake  Superior  within  fifty 
miles  of  Gargantua,  which  is  itself  about  one 
hundred  miles  north  of  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  I  must  be  thus  evasive 
and  non-committal  at  the  very  onset,  but 
fisherman's  ethics  will  justify  this  stand. 
About  trout-rivers  and  reefs  you  hunted 
out  or  stumbled  over  by  yourself  you  can 
prattle  all  you  please.  They  are  yours  and 
you  can  haunt  them  or  tell  unsympathetic 
editors  about  them  or  romance  to  dinner- 
parties about  them  and  do  nothing  worse  than 
make  a  fool  or  a  bore  of  yourself.  But 
when  you  are  rowed  to  them  in  another 
man's  boat,  by  another  man's  Indian,  on 
8  [113] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

top  of  another  man's  breakfast,  with  another 
man's  cook  to  fry  your  trout,  and  a  flask 
filled  with  another  man's  appetizer  in  your 
pocket — why,  then  those  rivers  and  reefs 
are  really  not  yours  to  prattle  about.  You  're 
a  camp-guest — sacred  and  ancient  mutual 
obligation  of  the  wilderness — that 's  what 
I  was — camp  guest. 

And  such  camping!  Why,  we  had  grape- 
fruit for  breakfast  and  cocktails  before  din- 
ner! The  third  morning  up  there  the  Editor 
was  impatient  because  the  camp-manicurist 
was  n't  on  the  job.  Personally,  I  was  n't 
accustomed  to  Indian-packers  who  run  up 
and  firmly  and  reproachfully  take  an  oar  or 
an  axe  out  of  your  hands,  much  as  the 
lord-chamberlain  would  rebuke  King  George 
for  trying  to  crank  his  own  runabout.  It 
was  incredibly  luxurious.  The  capacity  of 
camp-guest  brings  its  compensations.  Before 
I  left  I  had  Indians  sharpening  my  lead- 
pencils  for  me.  The  greatest  lesson  the 
wilderness  teaches,  perhaps,  is  adaptability. 
[114] 


"A  Sailor  Home  from  the  Sea" 

This  much  I  can  safely  tell  you  of  that 
camp!  Besides  being  pretty  close  to  Gar- 
gantua,  it  is  a  wonderful  little  harbor,  another 
four-fingers-and-thumb  thrust  into  the  shore- 
line of  Lake  Superior,  and  we  were  encamped 
upon  the  nail  of  the  middle  ringer  with  a 
rocky  island  effectually  blocking  the  entrance 
and  warning  back  the  booming  surf — Call  it 
Chippewa  Harbor,  if  you  like,  and  that 's 
pretty  close,  too.  Beside  my  tent  was  a 
grave.  A  sailor,  just  a  nameless  sailor,  had 
been  washed  up  there  ten  years  ago.  The 
Indians  found  him.  They  put  stones  over 
him  against  the  wolves  and  lynxes  and  a 
rough  cross  at  his  head.  And  he  slept  there 
beside  me,  a  tired  soul  "home  from  the  sea," 
a  very  quiet  bunkie,  and  his  parents,  per- 
haps his  wife  and  children,  will  never  know 
the  place  where  he  is  sleeping. 

Camp  was  ready  for  us  when  the  steamer 

Caribou,    whistling    blithely,    hove-to    and 

dropped  us  into  the  camp-boats  which  for 

hours  had  waited  outside  the  headlands  for 

[115] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

us.  A  cook  in  white  cap  and  apron  was 
frying  trout — and  cooling  cantaloupe!  It 
was  too  absurd — and  intoxicating ! 

Our  Host  met  us — with  a  whoop  and  a 
delirious  waltz  upon  the  rocky  beach.  That 's 
the  way  the  Host  always  greets  his  guests  in 
his  camps.  He  has  five  of  them — camps, 
not  guests.  They  are  duck-shooting  camp 
and  deer-shooting  camp  and  prairie-chicken 
camp  out  west  and  quail  camp  in  Georgia 
and  tuna  camp  in  California.  That  host, 
by  the  way,  is  now  Governor  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  Michigan.  There  is  only  one  man 
who  knows  the  Superior  country  as  well  as 
our  Host  and  that 's  the  Judge — but,  as  I 
said,  the  camp-cookie  was  frying  trout. 

There  we  met  "Tommie,"  a  very  old  and 
amiable  Chippewa  full-blood  from  Batche- 
wana  Bay.  Tommie  was  just  picking  up  my 
rain-coat  carefully  by  the  tail,  that  two  pipes 
and  a  tobacco-pouch  and  a  box  of  one  hundred 
cigarettes  might  tumble  out  of  the  pockets 
into  the  water  with  the  least  possible  re- 
[116] 


Gargantua  Light  Is  More  Hospitable  than  it  Looks. 


Abandoned  by  the  Honorable  Hudson's  Bay  Company 


Cognomen  or  College  Yell 

sistance.  Our  Host  introduced  him.  He 
said,  "This  is  Nish-i-shin-i-wog, "  which 
means  "Friend  of  Men,"  which  we  all  knew 
with  the  exception  of  the  Cartoonist.  He 
said,  "If  that  isn't  a  college-yell,  I  didn't 
catch  the  name,"  and  the  Indian  beamed 
delightedly  and  said,  "Make  um  Tommie," 
which  forthwith  the  Cartoonist  did.  Tommie 
Nish-i-shin-i-wog  has  a  place  in  this  narrative 
farther  on. 

It  was  a  funny  thing  about  Nate.  He  was 
a  camp-guest,  too.  Back  in  civilization 
comparatively  few  men  called  him  Nate 
and  held  their  jobs,  because  he  was  president 
of  a  big  public  service  corporation.  Several 
thousand  employees  called  him  "Mister" 
with  awe.  And,  because  he  was  president 
of  a  public  service  corporation,  the  gamboge 
dailies  called  him  a  variety  of  things.  But 
in  camp  he  was  "  Nate,"  even  to  Tommie,  who 
revelled  in  the  rare  monosyllable.  Never, 
outside  of  one  of  Mr.  Robert  W.  Chambers' 
heroes,  have  I  seen  a  man  piscatorially  so 
[117] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

well  equipped  as  Nate.  His  accumulated 
rod-cases  and  leader-boxes  alone  gave  the 
steamer  Caribou  quite  a  list  to  port.  He 
owned  stock  in  several  dozen  trout-preserves 
and  belonged  to  several  thousand  fishing 
clubs.  He  was  accustomed  to  wait  for  a 
wire  from  a  keeper  that  a  trout  had  actually 
been  seen.  Then  he  would  bump  elbows 
with  five  hundred  fellow-members  and  stalk 
that  trout  with  cunning  and  technique. 
When  it  was  caught  and  tipped  the  scale 
magnificently  at  a  full  half-pound,  its  captor 
would  give  a  wine  dinner  and  have  the  trout 
taxidermed  ior  "the  trophy  room,"  and  the 
club  would  present  him  with  a  silver  dinner 
service. 

So  Nate  came  to  the  waters  of  four-pound 
brook  trout  with  skepticism.  After  the 
first  camp-dinner  Tommie  took  Nate  in  the 
work-boat  and  rowed  him  about  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  across  the  harbor  to  the  rocks.  They 
were  gone  maybe  an  hour.  It  was  dark 
when  they  came  back.  Nate  came  up  to 


When  Man  Enters  at  His  Peril 

the  camp-fire  with  a  landing-net  full  of  six 
fish,  for  the  smallest  was  two  pounds.  "  Think 
of  it,"  he  said  awedly;  "I  was  figuring  it 
out  rowing  back  to  camp.  Why,  I  pay  about 
$1500  a  year  to  catch  minnows  too  small 
for  bait  for  these  whoppers."  Thereafter 
Nate  and  Tommie  were  as  Damon  and  Pyth- 
ias. Tommie  knew  the  holes,  and  than  Nate 
I  never  saw  a  prettier  fly-caster  or  a  better, 
cleaner  sportsman. 

There  is  a  little  river  flowing  into  Superior 
just  where  the  bones  of  a  wrecked  lake- 
freighter  lie  bleaching  on  the  reef.  It  was 
late  in  November  when  a  gale  from  the  north- 
west accompanied  by  a  snow-storm  and  zero 
weather  drove  the  vessel  from  her  course. 
They  had  tried  to  make  Michipocoten 
Harbor  but  the  gale  would  have  none  of  it. 
Her  powerful  engines  were  useless  and  the 
seas  flung  her  into  that  cove  and  piled  her 
on  the  rocks  so  close  to  shore  that  the  crew 
made  it,  scarcely  wetting  their  feet.  Then, 
however,  their  real  hardships  began.  They 
[119] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

had  twenty  miles  to  go  over  a  trailless  and 
incredibly  rough  country.  We  found  a  sled 
which  they  had  made  of  wire  and  barrel- 
staves.  Two  of  them  reached  Michipocoten 
Harbor.  One  died  there  from  his  exposure. 
The  other  had  a  frozen  foot  and  leg  ampu- 
tated. Help  was  sent  back  and  the  rest  of 
them  were  taken  from  the  pilot-house  which 
had  washed  ashore  and  still  stands  there 
among  the  balsams  to  bear  witness  to  Su- 
perior's retribution  when  winter  drops  the 
gates  and  man  enters  at  his  peril. 

But  it  was  n't  the  wreck  that  interested 
us  in  that  river.  There  were  trout  in  it. 
Jim  found  them.  Jim,  you  see,  played  first- 
base  on  the  Country  Club  baseball  team 
and  he  could  n't  see  why  he  should  n't  keep 
his  throwing  arm  in  shape  on  a  camping 
expedition  on  Lake  Superior.  So  he  brought 
a  mit  and  glove  and  a  few  balls  along.  When 
he  produced  them  we  laughed  derisively. 
Then  one  of  the  Indians  proclaimed  himself 
the  short-stop  of  the  All-Chippewa  team. 
[120] 


I 

Q 


Technique  of  the  Judiciary 

Our  Host  remembered  he  was  a  college- 
pitcher  in  the  early-somethings  and  the 
Judge  himself  had  a  "wing"  that  defied 
the  ravages  of  time  and  the  sedentary  ten- 
dencies of  a  judicial  career.  We  had  team- 
practice  regularly  after  breakfast.  In  a 
quick  throw  to  catch  an  imaginary  runner 
off  first,  I  threw  perfectly  to  the  centre  of 
the  little  river.  That 's  how  Jim  discovered 
the  trout. 

One  morning  Jim  offered  to  take  the  Judge 
up  the  river.  That  pleased  the  Judge  and 
he  let  Jim  take  him.  When  Jim — that  was 
his  first  trout-fishing  experience  in  that 
country — heard  that  night  at  dinner  that  the 
Judge  had  fished  that  river  for  forty-two 
years  and  was  the  only  white  man  that 
had  seen  its  headwaters,  Jim  was  actually 
embarrassed.  But  Jim  was  rewarded.  He 
saw  the  Judge  fish — with  a  little  two-and- 
a-half -ounce  stream -rod.  I  had  often  won- 
dered how  the  Judge  could  follow  me  down 
a  stream  and  double  my  kill  day  after  day. 
[121] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

What  Jim  narrated  that  night  at  dinner 
dissolved  the  mystery. 

It  was  a  small  river.  A  pound-fish  in  it 
was  an  achievement.  It  seems  that  the 
Judge  got  a  big  rise  in  a  pool.  Jim  went  on 
down  the  river,  waited  an  hour  for  the  Judge, 
and  came  back.  The  Judge  had  just  changed 
all  his  flies  for  the  sixth  time.  The  fish 
was  still  wary.  Then  the  Judge  sat  down 
and  smoked  and  let  the  fish  forget  the  whole 
incident.  Then  he  changed  his  flies  again 
and  worked  around  to  the  other  side  of  the 
pool,  trying  a  new  angle.  Jim  was  making 
remarks  by  this  time  and  the  Judge  urged 
him  to  go  down  to  camp,  because  he,  the 
Judge,  had  a  mission  in  life  and  he  was 
going  to  stay  on  the  job  and  fulfil  it. 

After  the  third  intermission  and  two  hours 
and  a  half  of  actual  manoeuvring  and  strate- 
gem  and  patience  and  most  finished  tech- 
nique, the  Judge  teased  that  fish  into  rising 
again.  Then  he  struck  him  and  landed  him, 
two  and  a  half  pounds — just  the  weight  in 
[122] 


Two  Miles  Perhaps 


ounces  of  his  rod — of  sinew  and  savagery 
and  deep  mahogany  color. 

Somewhere,  about  two  miles  back  of  camp, 
there  was  a  lake.  Camp  had  done  no  fishing 
for  two  days.  We  had  as  many  fish  as  we 
could  eat  and  no  man  would  defy  public 
sentiment  by  killing  more.  I  thought  of 
that  lake  and  the  possibility  of  seeing, 
perhaps  photographing,  a  moose  among  its 
lily-pads.  I  took  camera,  Colt,  compass,  a 
steel  rod  and  spinner  and  started  for  an  old 
blazed  trail  which  began  a  mile  down  the 
Superior  shore.  Our  Host  hailed  me.  He 
said  he  wanted  some  exercise  himself,  but 
I  discerned  his  real  reason  in  suspicion  of 
my  woodcraft  and  a  pardonable  propensity 
to  lose  one's  self  in  the  tamarack-swamps. 
Frankly,  I  was  glad  of  this  guide,  the  best 
woodsman  in  the  whole  north  country. 

We  found  the  blaze  and  followed  it  at  a 

pace  that  must  have  been  a  violation  of  the 

local    speed    ordinance.     As    we    went    our 

Host  remembered  that  five  years  before  he 

[123] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

had  built  and  floated  a  raft  on  that  little 
lake  and  thought  it  must  be  there  yet — if  we 
could  find  it.  When  we  got  the  first  glint 
of  its  waters,  we  slowed  down  and  went 
cautiously. 

"Look,  look!"  whispered  our  Host. 
"There's  one!  There's  another  and  an- 
other!" 

A  great  bull  moose,  a  cow,  and  a  calf — 
evidently  they  had  seen  or  scented  us — were 
moving  off  into  the  shadows,  without  a 
sound.  That  glimpse  of  wild  life  in  the 
heart  of  the  wilds  was  worth  the  two  miles 
up-hill.  We  circumnavigated  that  lake — 
and  no  raft.  Reeds  and  lily-pads  fringed 
its  heavily  wooded  shores.  It  was  so  still 
that  our  voices  reverberated  like  cannon. 
I  lighted  a  pipe  and  laid  down  the  steel 
rod. 

"What  did  you  bring  that  for?"  asked  our 
Host. 

"I  thought  there  might  be  pike  in  the 
lake,"  I  answered  somewhat  dubiously. 
[124] 


Fought  it  Out  Fish  to  Fish 

"There  are  pike,"  said  our  Host. 

"And  no  raft,"  I  ventured. 

"Are  you  afraid  to  get  wet?"  suggested 
our  Host. 

Of  course  I  was  n't.  I  may  have  been 
a  minute  before.  But  now  wading  an  un- 
known lake  of  unguessed  depths  was  about 
the  best  thing  I  did.  I  was  just  a  little 
nettled.  With  rod  in  right  hand  and  the 
spinner  dangling  I  plunged  boldly  in — I  had 
forgotten  about  the  silt-bottom  which  is 
about  as  firm  and  satisfying  a  thing  to  walk 
upon  as  a  sidewalk  of  thunder-clouds. 
When  I  was  down  to  the  waist,  I  tossed  my 
watch,  revolver,  and  camera  ashore.  Then 
I  found  a  submerged  twig  and  stood  upon  it 
to  cast.  The  spinner  went  shrieking  out 
forty  feet  or  so,  just  beyond  the  lily-pads. 
There  was  a  splash  ten  feet  away.  A  big 
fish  had  thought  of  something.  Then  a 
swirl  and  another  splash  and  I,  standing  on 
a  rotten  twig,  was  hooked  to  a  submarine. 
Of  course  the  twig  broke.  I  went  down  to 
[125] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

arm-pits,  then  to  neck.  Then  I  began 
swimming  and  that  pike  and  I  fought  it 
out  among  the  lily-pads,  as  fish  to  fish.  At 
last  I  got  close  enough  to  shore  to  throw  a 
convulsed  comedian  the  rod  and  he  dragged 
a  six-pound  pike  out  in  the  bushes.  I  needed 
the  run  home  in  the  twilight  to  set  up  circu- 
lation and  shake  off  the  mud. 

"The  joke  of  the  jokes,"  admitted  our 
Host,  "is  the  fact  that  I  had  n't  the  slightest 
suspicion  there  was  a  pike  within  five  miles. 
I  just  wanted  to  see  you  swim."  I  laughed 
perfunctorily  a  chilling  laugh. 

All  pink  and  glowing  we  were  dashing 
tent-ward  from  the  lake  bath  that  morning 
when  Tommie  Nish-i-shin-i-wog  interrupted 
us.  He  had  just  come  with  pails  of  water 
for  Cookee.  Tommie  had  something  weighty 
on  his  mind.  We  could  see  that. 

"Bear-track — big  one — oh,  very  big! — " 

said  Tommie,  with  his  two  hands  together 

for  purposes  of  graphic  illustration:  "Come 

see!"    We  did — and  we  saw — it  was  made 

[126] 


Tracks  and  Artistic  Foreboding 

in  the  wet  sand — not  fifty  feet  from  the  cook- 
tent,  not  seventy  feet  from  our  own  profound 
and  virtuous  slumbers.  And  such  a  track! 
It  looked  a  good  deal  like  a  track  such  as  a 
seven-foot,  barefoot  man  might  make — 
only  the  claws  were  there.  We  were  all 
thrilled  and  pleased — save  the  Cartoonist. 
He  was  frankly  oppressed.  Several  times 
during  the  day  the  Cartoonist  went  down 
to  the  beach  and  looked  at  that  bear-track, 
spanned  it  with  his  fingers  and  came  back 
ominously  shaking  his  head.  All  day  he 
talked  of  his  hypothetical  meeting  with  a 
giant  bear  or  wolf-pack  or  hungry  lynx 
family.  He  brooded  over  it.  We  couldn't 
cheer  him.  That  evening  about  the  camp- 
fire  the  Indians  outdid  one  another  in  tales 
of  dreadful  encounters  with  wild  beasts. 
Our  Host  showed  a  scar  on  his  arm  left  by 
a  wounded  she-bear,  he  said,  and  the  Car- 
toonist listened  fascinated  by  the  horror  of  it. 
The  Cartoonist  and  I  bunked  together  in 
the  tent  nearest  the  thicket  of  juniper  and 
[127] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

tag-alder  that  hemmed  in  the  camp.  He 
slept  in  a  Jaegar  sleeping-bag,  a  luxurious 
provision  of  our  Host;  I  upon  the  softest 
bed  in  the  world,  balsam-boughs,  and  my 
pillow  was  against  the  rear  wall  of  the  tent. 
While  we  donned  our  couch-draperies  the 
Cartoonist  continued  to  discuss  gloomily 
our  chances  of  escaping  the  digestive  organs 
of  some  hungry  wood-monster.  I  asked 
him  at  last  if  he  did  n't  know  the  camp  was 
"playing  horse"  with  him  and  he  was  genu- 
inely relieved  and  grateful.  In  fact,  for  the 
first  time  in  sixteen  hours  he  forgot  the 
bear-track. 

I  had  n't  been  asleep  when  I  first  heard  the 
sound.  It  came  three  times  before  I  decided 
to  speak.  I  thought  the  Cartoonist  was 
moving  in  his  canvas  sarcophagus.  I  asked 
him  why  he  did  n  't  go  to  sleep. 

"That  isn't  me,"  said  the  Cartoonist 
with  the  bad  grammar  of  a  genuine  panic. 
"There's  something  outside  the  tent  trying 
to  get  in." 

[128] 


Something  with  a  Snort 

"What  had  we  better  do?"  asked  the 
Cartoonist. 

"We  might  sing,"  I  suggested. 

Then  it  happened!  The  sound  of  our 
giggles  moved  the  something-outside  to 
action.  With  a  snort  the  something  began 
lifting  the  canvas  directly  beneath  my  left 
ear.  I  arose  horizontally  in  the  air  and  landed 
in  a  rigid  kneeling  position,  facing  the  in- 
truder. As  I  did  so,  I  believe,  I  exclaimed 
fervently,  "My  God!" 

"That's  right,  old  man,"  said  the  Car- 
toonist. "Whatever  it  is,  let's  get  the 
Deity  on  the  job  just  as  soon  as  we  can." 

"Get  the  lantern,"  I  said.  I  heard  the 
Cartoonist  floundering  and  muttering.  Then 
he  said,  "Say — I'm  tied  in  this  blankety- 
blank  thing.  Sleeping-bag — hell!  It's  a 
fire-trap.  That's  what  it  is." 

I  got  him  out,  I  think,  by  the  hair.     We 

had  just  lighted  the  lantern  with  trembling 

fingers  when  the  something  bumped  into  the 

tent  and  I  could  see  the  outline  of  a  very 

9  [129] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

bulky  form.  I  kicked  it  with  a  socked  foot 
and  it  crashed  off  into  the  bushes,  making 
about  as  much  noise  as  a  neurotic  milch- 
cow  might  make.  Armed  each  with  a 
hob-nailed  boot,  we  sallied  forth  pajamaed. 

"If  it 's  a  bear  I  '11  give  him  a  black-eye, 
anyway,"  said  the  Cartoonist. 

First,  I  found  a  stout  little  stick  about  two 
feet  long.  It  looked  most  serviceable,  until 
I  found  one  double  the  weight  and  length. 
So  I  gave  the  first  stick  to  the  Cartoonist. 
Rapidly  he  made  the  inevitable  comparison 
and  said: 

"Here — I  've  been  short-changed  on  these 
sticks."  We  started  determinedly  for  the 
outfit-tent  to  get  my  revolver  and  had  gone 
maybe  fifty  feet  down  the  black  trail — when 
the  lantern  went  out.  Simultaneously  there 
was  a  snort  and  crash  in  the  bushes  beside  us. 
The  Cartoonist  and  I  clinched.  Also  we  shout- 
ed— cheerily — to  the  rest  of  camp.  The  Editor, 
thrusting  his  head  out  of  his  tent,  said  things 
which  only  an  irritable  editor,  unfamiliar 
[130] 


Theories  and  Blazing  Logs 

with  the  facts,  can  say.  But  I  noticed  that 
the  Indians  replenished  the  fires  and  took 
their  guns  to  bed  with  them.  As  for  the 
Cartoonist,  he  conscripted  a  rifle,  two  re- 
volvers, an  axe,  and  a  hunting-knife  and,  on 
top  of  his  sleeping-bag,  laid  him  down  to 
pleasant  dreams. 

With  two  men  in  camp  so  familiar  with 
the  "language,  customs,  and  laws"  of  the 
wilderness  as  were  our  Host  and  the  Judge, 
it  was  inevitable  that  there  be  much  dis- 
cussion, at  table  and  about  the  fire,  of  the 
lore  of  lake,  stream,  and  woods.  I  quite 
filled  a  note-book,  writing  in  the  glow  of 
birch  logs.  The  Judge  had  a  theory,  based 
upon  forty  years  of  observation  and  abun- 
dantly confirmed  by  practice  right  there  in 
two  striking  incidents.  The  Judge  contended 
that  the  big  trout  frequently  takes  a  fly  out 
of  sheer  belligerency.  He  is  guarding  his 
home-hole  and  resents  the  intrusion.  That 
was  the  reason  the  Judge  exasperated  the 
two-and-a-half  pounder  up  the  river  to  rise 
[131] 


In  the,  Trout  Democracy 

after  haggling  him  for  two  and  a  half  hours. 
It  came  forcibly  to  me,  too,  in  a  way  that  I 
shall  tell. 

But  the  "technical  talk"  wearied  Jim. 
The  Scourge  of  the  Nature-Fakirs  still  dom- 
inated his  imagination,  you  see.  He  saw 
too  much  romance  and  pure  imagination  in 
it.  He  was  scornful.  One  day  when  we 
returned  to  camp  Jim  met  us  all  glowing  with 
excitement.  He  said  he  had  done  a  little 
"nature-study"  himself  and  had  found  a 
"cuckoo's  nest. "  We  assured  him  the  north- 
woods  was  cuckooless,  but  he  clung  to  it 
bravely.  At  last  he  consented  to  lead  us 
to  his  find.  We  started  next  morning,  Jim 
leading,  the  rest  strung  out  in  Indian-file. 
Over  ridges,  down  vales,  through  swamps 
and  canyons  we  went,  Jim  ostentatiously 
blazing  trees  and  theatrically  making  obser- 
vations as  we  went.  It  was  almost  noon 
when  Jim  came  back  and  halted  us.  "Now 
we  must  go  cautiously  and  quietly,"  he  said, 
"so  we  won't  frighten  the  mother-cuckoo 
[132] 


A  Grasshopper  Grievance 

off  the  nest."  Still  we  thought  it  best  to 
humor  him  and  tiptoed  another  mile  or  so. 
Then  Jim  crept  up  to  a  black-alder  bush. 
With  infinite  care  and  skill  he  parted  the 
branches  and  said  dramatically:  "There  is 
your  cuckoo's  nest." 

We  peered  in  and  beheld  a  cute  little  fig- 
basket  with  four  very  fresh  olives  in  it. 

But  about  the  belligerency  of  old  trout. 
The  Judge  and  I,  with  Tommie  Nish-i-shin- 
i-wog  and  the  work-boat  and  a  skillet  and 
lunch,  had  started  out  straight  from  an  early 
breakfast.  It  was  my  last  day  in  the  land 
of  Vacation  Dreams  and  I  longed  for  an 
incident  that  might  make  a  fitting  centre- 
piece for  the  memory  of  the  trip.  I  got  it, 
all  right.  We  rowed  along  the  reefs  for  five 
miles.  The  Judge  got  one  fish  and  two 
other  rises.  That  was  all.  The  surface 
of  the  water  was  dotted  with  grasshoppers. 
We  told  each  other  that  the  fish  were  gorged 
and  Tommie  agreed  with  us.  We  said  we  'd 
go  ashore,  lunch  on  the  Judge's  fish,  and  look 
[133] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

up  an  old  trail  from  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie  to 
Michipocoten,  which  the  Judge  thought  ran 
close  to  the  lake-shore  at  that  point.  We 
started  back  to  camp  about  two  in  the  after- 
noon. The  grasshoppers  were  still  holding 
their  impromptu  regatta.  If  anything,  there 
were  more  of  them.  Rather  perfunctorily 
we  began  to  cast. 

There  was  nothing  perfunctory  about  the 
response.  We  had  killed  a  dozen  fish  in 
the  first  mile,  casting  into  holes  full  of  silly 
bobbing  grasshoppers.  At  last  we  came  to 
a  place  where  a  mountain  had  split  in  two 
and  half  of  it  toppled  into  the  lake.  There 
were  great  half-submerged  boulders,  big  as 
the  Caribou,  all  about.  Beside  one  of  these 
was  a  hole,  showing  the  green  of  depths  and 
the  shadow  that  the  big  chaps  like.  "  There  's 
a  likely  hole,  Judge,"  I  shouted  from  the 
bow— "Try  it." 

"You  can  reach  it  better  than  I,"  said  the 
Judge.  "You'll  get  one  there." 

I  saw  my  first  cast  was  going  to  fall  a  little 
[i34l 


The  New  Race  in  the  Lap  of  the  Race  that  is  Passing. 


The  Reel  Screamed 


short.  I  tried  to  stop  it  in  mid-air,  but  the 
dropper-fly  just  rested  for  an  instant  on  the 
water  five  feet  from  the  hole.  In  fact,  I 
had  started  the  back-cast  when  there  was 
a  splash  that  made  us  look  at  each  other 
with  bulging  eyes. 

"Quick — get  back  there,"  said  the  Judge. 

I  nearly  got  Tommie's  ear,  but  the  flies,  all 
three  of  them,  a  gaudy  Parmachenee  Belle, 
a  Montreal,  and  a  Royal  Coachman,  settled 
directly  over  the  hole.  He  had  the  Par- 
machenee before  the  Montreal  was  really 
wet.  When  I  struck  him  with  that  four- 
ounce  rod,  he  was  so  solid  that  I  thought 
for  a  minute  I  had  actually  hooked  a  rock. 
But  for  just  a  minute.  Tommie  started 
madly  for  deeper  water,  with  that  great  fish 
pacing  him.  The  reel  screamed  shrilly. 
He  took  more  line  than  I  realized  for  when 
he  did  break  water  he  was  so  far  off  I  thought 
I  'd  lost  him. 

"Start  him  back  quick,  before  he  recovers," 
said  the  Judge.  "Good  Lord — what  a  fish! 
[135] 


In  the  Trout  Democracy 

Don't  hurry  him.  He  '11  fight  you  half  an 
hour."  And  he  did.  Precisely  seven  times 
I  had  that  old  patriarch  within  twelve  feet 
of  the  boat,  Tommie  praying  into  the  net. 
And  seven  times  he  went  away  again.  Each 
time  that  I  snubbed  him  I  thought  it  the 
last.  I  shouted,  implored,  stormed,  and, 
I  'm  afraid,  cussed.  My  arms  ached  and  my 
nerves  were  tense  as  piano-strings.  We 
had  drifted  a  mile  off  shore. 

"I  think  he'll  do  now,"  said  the  Judge. 
"Give  me  the  net  and  remember  I  won't 
try  it  unless  you  can  lift  his  head  out  of 
water." 

Inch  by  inch  he  came  in  then,  a  steady 
desperate  resistance — no  more  mad  rushes. 
Twenty  feet,  fifteen  feet,  ten  feet!  I  could 
see  him  now  and  I  gasped. 

"Steady  now,"  whispered  the  Judge. 
"Head  out — remember." 

Tommie  shipped  his  oars. 

I  drew  a  long,  hot  breath. 

"Now,"  said  the  Judge. 
[136] 


Conclusions  and  Flasks 

There  was  a  swish  of  that  net — oh  how 
skilful — a  flurry  of  spray.  He  hit  the 
gun'ale.  Tommie  slapped  him  and  he  tum- 
bled into  the  boat — unhooked! 

" Mon-ta-me-gus — hurrah!"  said  Tommie 
Nish-i-shin-i-wog. 

"Tommie,"  said  the  Judge,  "your  unprece- 
dented emotion  is  eminently  justifiable. 
You  '11  find  the  flask  in  the  tin  box  under 
the  second  seat." 

He  was  a  little  better  than  five  pounds — 
and  a  brook  trout — and  there  were  other 
flasks  in  camp,  which  proves  the  Judge's 
point  that  big  trout  bite  from  belligerency 
and  my  point  that  Superior  is  the  land  of 
Vacation  Dreams. 


[i37l 


CHAPTER  VII 

A    BEATIFIC    ERROR    AND    A    SECRET    MISSION 

WHEN  a  North  Shore  fisherman  meets 
a  brother  North  Shore  fisherman 
the  conversation  is  quite  certain  to  gravitate 
to  the  region  of  the  historic  Michipocoten, 
down  which  the  canoe-flotillas  of  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  once  came  paddling  and 
singing  from  the  Great  Bay  to  Sault  de  Sainte 
Marie.  They  will  talk  about  the  Michi- 
pocoten's  colorful  and  not  entirely  honorable 
history;  its  falls,  a  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
high,  and  its  miles  upon  miles  of  boiling  rapids 
of  which  they  have  possibly  heard.  Then 
the  North  Shore  fisherman  will  assume  an 
expression  of  wood-wisdom  quite  profound 
and  say  to  his  brother — if  his  brother  has  n't 
said  it  first: 

"Funny  thing,  there 're  no  trout  in  the 
Michipocoten." 

[138] 


The  Ancient  Colloquy 


And  the  brother  will  retort  with  equal 
gravity  and  finality: 

"Nothing  for  'em  to  feed  on.  Wrong  kind 
of  water." 

The  first  North  Shoreman  says: 

"Yep." 

And  each  feels  that  he  has,  indeed,  found  a 
kindred  spirit  in  the  wilderness  and  an  appre- 
ciator  worthy  of  his  pearls  of  wisdom. 

I  have  heard  that  colloquy,  according  to 
statistics  of  the  Log,  5179  times  in  my 
considerable  journeys  to  the  Lake  Superior 
country.  Before  we  ourselves  knew  anything 
of  the  Michipocoten  country  we  used  to 
discuss  this  ' '  no- trout-in- the-  Michipocoten ' » 
theme  and  wonder  why  it  appealed  so  potently 
to  the  imagination  of  the  average  North 
Shore  fisherman,  which  is  not  habitually 
morbid.  It  got  so,  that  whenever  we  met  a 
strange  fisherman  on  the  steamer  or  train 
or  portage  or  at  a  fishing-station  we  'd  de- 
liberately manoeuvre  the  conversation  around 
to  the  Michipocoten  and  then,  by  a  spirited 
[i39l 


A  Beatific  Error 


dash,  try  to  beat  him  to  the  trite  and  tra- 
ditional observation.  But  we  always  found 
him  suspicious  and  alert.  "  No-trout-in-the 
Michipocoten "  seems  to  be  as  permanent 
a  fixture  in  the  Lake  Superior  country  as 
the  Aurora  Borealis  or  the  rock  of  petrified 
Nan-i-bou-jou. 

During  the  first  three  years  of  quite 
ceaseless  reiteration,  I  accepted  this  slogan 
implicitly.  I  was  receptive  and  tender- 
footish.  Slowly  it  dawned  upon  me  that 
there  must  be  something  wrong  with  a  con- 
clusion of  which  5179  gentlemen-fishermen 
were  so  cock-sure,  so  belligerently  and  un- 
reasonably sure. 

Then  one  day,  wading  up  the  mad  little 
Puckoso  River,  I  came  upon  the  tepee  of 
an  Indian,  hunting, — Mr.  Maj-i-nuten.  He 
had  been  a  canoe-man  for  the  Honorable 
H.  B.  C.  himself.  Seeking  to  impress  and 
awe  that  Indian  as  I  myself  had  been  im- 
pressed and  awed,  I  drew  myself  up,  looking 
very  knowing  indeed,  and  let  it  go: 
[140] 


William    Teddy     Embarrassed    and     George     Andre 
Resigned. 


Speaks  Maj-i-nuten 


''Funny  there 're  no  trout  in  the  Michi- 
pocoten  River." 

The  effect  upon  Maj-i-nuten,  as  we  sat 
there  smoking  on  a  rock  in  the  rapids,  was 
most  disappointing  and  humiliating.  The 
hallowed  observation  failed  entirely  to  im- 
press and  awe  Maj-i-nuten.  "He  blew  a 
whiff  from  his  pipe  and  a  scornful  laugh 
laughed  he."  It  was  n't  quite  scornful — 
it  was  just  a  laugh  bubbling  with  whole- 
hearted and  utterly  uncontrollable  enjoyment. 
Maj-i-nuten  sobered  at  the  sight  of  my 
embarrassment  and  said: 

"Well — you  know — it's  strandge  t'ing 
'bout  dat.  I  guess  so  mebbe  dat  story  she 's 
de  oldest  dam  lie  what  I  know." 

Silently  there  among  the  spruces  Maj-i- 
nuten  and  I  shook  hands.  He  gave  me  the 
particulars  and  the  proof.  It  was  all  very 
simple — as  I  supposed  it  must  be.  Maj- 
i-nuten  had  trapped  up  the  Michipocoten 
the  winter  before — every  winter — and  occa- 
sionally carried  mail  in  the  summer.  He 
[141] 


A  Beatific  Error 


was  full  of  dreams  that  were  gorgeous  and 
preparations  that  were  feverish.  I  besought 
Ottawa  for  maps,  and  Ottawa  promptly 
and  courteously  swamped  me  with  maps 
of  everything  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada, 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  the 
international  boundary  to  the  Arctic  circle 
— with  the  exception  of  the  Michipocoten 
River.  I  wrote  back  to  Ottawa,  grateful 
but  insistent  upon  the  Michipocoten  River. 
Then  Ottawa  packed  up  and  mailed  me  all 
the  maps  of  Baffin's  Bay  and  the  Canadian 
Rockies  that  had  been  overlooked  in  the 
first  shipment.  Then,  wholly  by  chance, 
I  heard  of  an  ex-newspaper  man  in  the  office 
of  the  Minister  of  Public  Works,  Toronto. 
My  heart  sings  songs  of  praise  whenever  I 
think  of  that  newspaper  man  and  the  generous 
destiny  that  revealed  him  to  me.  He  went 
up  into  the  musty  attic  and  dug  out  an  old 
map  of  the  "Michipocoten  Mining  Division 
of  the  District  of  Algoma,  Ontario,  scale 
two  miles  to  the  inch."  The  engineers  who 
[144] 


Ecstatic  Lunch 


made  that  old  map  knew  their  job  and  loved 
their  work.  Subsequent  events  proved  that 
map's  accuracy  to  be  remarkable. 

The  finding  of  that  map  inaugurated  the 
whole  ecstatic  campaign  of  preparation. 
The  North  Shore  Club  tiptoed  into  the 
private  dining-room  of  the  University  Club 
for  lunch.  We  pulled  down  the  shades  and 
plugged  up  the  keyhole  and  put  cotton  in 
the  ears  of  the  waiter.  We  organized  the 
campaign.  Four  men  pledged  themselves 
to  go.  That  meant  four  Indian  packers — 
one  of  them  a  cook — and  four  canoes.  We 
must  have  at  least  one  man  who  knew  the 
Michipocoten  River.  The  others  must  be 
experienced  canoe-men.  We  decided  to  out- 
fit at  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie,  Ontario,  to 
save  freight  and  duties  and  complications. 
All  this  meant  lively  and  immediate  corre- 
spondence. We  ordered  three  A-tents,  7  by 
9,  and  engaged  four  Peterboro  canoes,  each 
17  feet  long  and  capable  of  carrying  two 
men  and  duffel.  We  had  to  get  licenses 
10  [145] 


A  Beatific  Error 


for  the  guides,  too,  from  the  Canadian 
government  and  fishing  licenses  for  ourselves. 
The  courtesy  of  Superintendent  of  Game  and 
Fisheries  Tinsley  lightened  very  appreciably 
the  burden  of  preliminary  detail. 

Altogether,  that  was  a  very  busy  though 
joyous  lunch  that  the  North  Shore  Club 
had  that  day.  In  fact  there  was  little  time 
to  indulge  in  the  delights  of  anticipation 
during  those  weeks  before  July  27th  at  last 
rolled  around.  We  had  engaged  three  In- 
dians to  join  us  at  Michipocoten  Harbor. 
The  other  Indian  had  sworn  to  meet  me  at 
the  hotel,  Sault  de  Sainte  Marie,  at  three 
o'clock  the  afternoon  of  July  2 7th. 

I  have  yet  to  participate  in  or  witness  the 
departure  of  a  camping  party  that  was  un- 
accompanied by  a  hearty  panic  for  all  hands. 
That  is  the  final  hour  of  reckoning,  too  late 
for  a  remedy,  when  everybody  remembers 
what  he  has  forgotten  and  fearfully  antici- 
pates what  probably  will  be  forgotten.  All 
day,  on  that  July  26th,  I  had  been  sending 
[146] 


Preliminary  Panics 


bouyant  telegrams  on  my  way  up  the  State 
of  Michigan,  fresh  from  a  tennis  tournament, 
to  join  the  North  Shore  Club.  When  I 
staggered  off  the  train,  lugging  rod-case, 
camera,  duffel-bags,  and  creel,  I  beamed  at 
the  thought  of  the  riotous  welcome  in  store 
for  me.  As  a  matter  of  record,  those  of  the 
waiting  North  Shore  Club  that  did  not  greet 
me  with  chilling  languor,  greeted  me  with 
open  hostility. 

Instead  of  shouting,  "Here  he  is,  boys!" 
and  slapping  me  on  the  back  and  relieving 
me  of  my  traps  and  offering  to  open  white- 
labelled  bottles  for  me  and  singing  songs 
of  youth's  springtime  and  good  cheer,  they 
glared  down  on  me  and  muttered: 

"Well — where  in  h have  you  been?" 

It  took  me  some  time  to  get  to  the  bottom 
of  the  cataclysm  which,  apparently,  had 
overwhelmed  them.  They  had  all  arrived 
in  "The  Soo"  about  twenty-four  hours  ahead 
of  me  and  each,  according  to  his  temperament 
and  opportunities  and  tastes,  had  developed 
[i47] 


A  Beatific  Error 


the  panic  that  best  suited  his  purposes. 
The  A-tents  were  n't  ready.  One  of  the 
canoes  was  too  small ;  it  could  n't  possibly 
be  made  to  do.  We  shouldn't  have  time — 
just  one  whole  day,  that 's  all — to  buy 
supplies  and  get  everything  aboard  the  boat. 
Besides  all  that,  all  of  them  felt — largely 
intuitively — that  the  guides  would  disap- 
point us,  that  we  should  n't  be  able  to  find 
the  boat-landing,  and  that  it  would  rain, 
possibly  snow.  Destiny  certainly  dumped 
me  down  into  a  nice  little  family  reunion  of 
the  Gloom  Brothers.  First,  I  got  them  all 
sitting  around  a  table.  It  was  a  warm 
night  and  I  called  the  waiter.  When  the 
waiter  had  made  his  third  trip  we  began 
to  see  light,  even  a  little  hope  ahead.  We 
divided  up  into  rescue-parties.  Jim  and 
Fred  were  to  get  the  tents,  any  tents,  and  the 
four  canoes,  any  four  canoes,  aboard  the 
steamer  Caribou — and  sit  upon  them  until 
the  Caribou  should  be  well  out  in  Lake 
Superior.  His  Lordship — he  was  an  English- 
[148] 


Costly  Bombardments 


man,  and  a  bully  good  fellow,  that 's  all — and 
I  were  to  buy  the  supplies,  tobacco,  dish- 
towels,  stimulants,  and  all,  get  the  fishing 
licenses,  put  them  aboard  the  Caribou — 
and  sit  upon  them,  right  opposite,  if  possible, 
the  place  where  Jim  and  Fred  were  sitting 
upon  their  cargo. 

We  were  almost  light-hearted  when  we  went 
to  bed  in  the  hotel  that  night,  so  considerably 
had  the  cloud  of  foreboding  been  lifted. 
His  Lordship  even  hummed  a  snatch  of  a 
very  English  hunting  song  and  tried  a  very 
English  joke  as  he  was  drawing  his  bath. 

That  brings  us  down  to  July  27th,  the  day 
of  the  sailing.  It  opened  at  6.30  A.M., 
catching  Fred  between  snores — with  a  deluge 
of  telegrams — all  for  Fred.  His  office  had 
to  have  him  back  right  away  and,  to  tell  him 
all  about  it,  his  office  did  n't  care  how  much 
it  paid  into  the  yawning  coffers  of  the  Western 
Union,  either.  Fred  and  his  office  bombarded 
each  other  spiritedly  with  fifty-word  de- 
spatches until  noon.  Then  Fred  did  a  wise 
[?49l 


A  Beatific  Error 


thing  and  discrete  thing.  He  began  putting 
all  his  office's  telegrams  into  his  duffel-bag 
unopened.  He  opened  them  twelve  hours 
later — fifty  miles  out  in  Lake  Superior. 
As  a  result  his  office  wired  its  head  off  for 
two  days  and  then  shut  up — for  three  weeks. 
Every  man  must  teach  his  office  its  place 
once  a  year  or  so. 

By  three  o'clock — arrayed  in  all  the 
splendors  of  camping-togs,  all  1910  model — 
we  had  every  essential  and  slippery  article 
of  freight  and  baggage  aboard  the  Caribou 
and  were  sitting  upon  it — all  save  the  Indian 
cook.  I  went  back  to  the  hotel  to  keep  my 
"date"  with  him  at  three  o'clock.  Came 
four  o'clock,  then  five  o'clock — but  never 
the  Indian.  I  rushed  back  to  the  Caribou 
and  jerked  the  North  Shore  Club  off  the 
baggage-piles.  We  organized  a  cook-hunt. 
Sailing-time  was  approaching  and  not  one 
of  us — more  shame  to  us — had  enough 
confidence  in  the  others'  culinary  skill  to 
trust  to  necessity  and  inspiration.  We  offered 
[150] 


A  Cookless  Departure 


a  bounty  of  $5,  then  $10,  then  $15  per  cook, 
dead  or  alive,  delivered  Caribou  L  o.  b.  by 
seven  P.M. 

When  the  gang-plank  of  the  Caribou  was 
hauled  aboard  and  the  lines  cast  off,  the 
North  Shore  Club  was  hanging  over  the  rail 
looking  longingly  shoreward,  cookless.  The 
Great  Hare  must  have  heard  our  prayer. 
Joe  Corbiere  came  up  and  greeted  me.  Joe 
and  I  have  fished  and  hunted  and  bunked 
together  for  a  long  time  now.  And  Joe 
can  cook.  I  tried  to  shanghai  Joe  right 
there.  But  it  would  n't  do.  Joe  was  going 
up  the  Shore  with  another  party.  But 
Joe  would  get  me  a  cook, — yes  "I  guess 
so  mebbe" — perhaps — sure,  at  Batchewana 
Bay — yes,  even  though  he  had  to  beat  him 
into  insensibility  with  a  tent-peg.  Joe  ac- 
cepted the  bounty  and  I  knew  we  'd  have  a 
cook  for  breakfast,  albeit  a  battered  and 
bruised  cook.  But  a  cook  is  a  cook. 

We  were  due  to  reach  Batchewana  Bay — 
a  fishing-station  and  half-hearted  Indian 
[151] 


A  Beatific  Error 


settlement — at  four  A.M.  I  told  the  ship's 
watchman — for  another  bonus — to  call  Joe 
and  me  at  3.45  A.M.  Joe  met  me  at  the 
gang-plank.  Dawn  was  just  breaking.  We 
tiptoed  off  into  the  cook-country,  going 
quietly  not  to  flush  them.  We  came  to  a 
shanty  in  the  poplars  and  half-light.  Joe 
threw  open  the  door,  stalked  up  to  a  sleeper, 
and  said  something  in  Indian  that  sounded 
like  a  foot-ball  signal.  The  sleeper,  an 
Indian,  grunted,  got  up,  grabbed  for  his 
trousers  and  hat,  and  said  "all  right,"  pre- 
cisely as  if  this  being  yanked  out  of  bed  at 
four  A.M.  to  go  to  the  Arctic  circle  with  a 
pack  of  strange,  pale-faced  lunatics  were  a 
lifelong  custom. 

And  it  was  old  Tommie  Nish-i-shin-i-wog. 
I  did  n't  know  that  Tommie  could  cook, 
but  it  was  Joe's  party  and  responsibility — 
not  mine. 

When  we  got  back  to  the  Caribou  I  made 
Joe  a  proposition  to  come  to  the  big  city 
and  open  an  intelligence  office  based  upon 
[152] 


De  Gustibus— Alas ! 


just  those  business  methods.  In  ten  minutes 
he  had  convinced  me  that  there  's  only  one 
way  to  get  a  "perfect  jewel'*  for  the  kitchen. 
The  Caribou  was  an  hour  out  of  Michipo- 
coten  Harbor — we  should  arrive  there  at 
3  P.M. — when  four  men,  each  in  a  stateroom 
slightly  more  spacious  than  a  canary-cage, 
began  redistributing  his  belongings  and  re- 
making his  packs.  It  was  uncommonly 
complicated  business.  First,  we  were  going 
up  the  river — and  would  start  that  night. 
We  must  travel  light.  After  the  river  trip 
we  were  going  into  permanent  camp  and 
live  luxuriously  on  the  Lake  Superior  shore 
and  get  the  reef-fishing.  That  meant  one 
pack  to  go  and  one  pack  to  stay  in  the  Michi- 
pocoten  warehouse.  Worse  than  that,  it 
meant  the  ripping  open  on  the  boat  or  dock 
of  every  box  of  bacon,  coffee,  flour,  every  re- 
ceptacle in  that  mound  of  supplies.  We  all 
wrangled  over  it  for  an  hour,  every  man 
fighting  for  the  item  of  diet  dearest  to  his 
stomach.  When  a  majority  sentiment  de- 
[i53l 


A  Beatific  Error 


creed  that  the  stimulants  should  be  reduced 
to  a  full  flask  per  man  on  that  river  trip  His 
Lordship  broke  down  completely  and  the 
spectacle  of  his  unrestrained  grief  unnerved 
us. 

But  George  Andre  was  there — on  the  pier 
at  Michipocoten  Harbor  waiting  for  us. 
He  was  the  head  guide  we  had  engaged  by 
correspondence.  I  liked  George  Andre  the 
minute  I  grabbed  his  great,  brown,  sinewy 
paw.  He  was  a  full-blooded  Chippewa,  six 
feet  high,  lean  and  rangey.  He  looked  you 
squarely  in  the  eye  when  he  talked.  The 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  try  the  weight  of 
one  of  the  canoes.  That  seemed  logical. 
Then  he  fell-to,  opening  boxes  and  separating 
the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  He  had  his  two 
sub-guides  there,  too.  He  presented  them 
as  Peter  Kash  and  William  Teddy.  Pete 
was  just  a  good-natured,  fat  Indian-cub, 
who  laughed  and  ate  much  more  easily 
and  instinctively  than  he  worked.  If  Wil- 
liam Teddy  were  a  younger  man — he  is  a 
[i54] 


Providential  Coleman 


well  preserved  fifty  perhaps — I  should  guess 
his  name  to  be  a  subtle  compliment  both 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States  and 
our  Most  Public  Private  Citizen.  Life  is  all 
an  uproarious  incident  to  William  Teddy, 
too. 

The  mouth  of  the  Michipocoten  River  is 
three  miles  from  the  harbor  dock — three 
miles  across  Michipocoten  Bay.  The  work 
of  picking  seven-day  essentials  out  of  the 
commissary  department  was  progressing  very 
slowly.  The  afternoon  was  waning.  We 
had  to  get  a  start  up  the  river  that  day; 
or  to  make  camp,  at  least. 

Providence  sent  us  Mr.  Coleman  and  his 
gasoline  launch.  We  fell  upon  him  and 
chartered  him  for  an  indefinite  period  on  the 
spot.  We  divided  the  party.  Jim  and  His 
Lordship  stayed  on  the  wharf  to  finish  the 
work  of  inventory  and  elimination.  Fred 
and  I  loaded  up  the  Rambler  with  duffel, 
tents,  and  supplies  already  accepted  and  the 
Rambler  settled  down  in  the  Superior  waters 
[i55l 


A  Beatific  Error 


to  her  guards.  We  took  George  Andre, 
Pete,  William  Teddy,  and  Tommie,  and,  with 
the  four  canoes  leaping  and  capsizing  in  tow 
astern,  we  cut  across  the  bay  for  the  river- 
mouth  to  find  a  camp-site.  We  promised 
to  send  back  for  Jim  and  His  Lordship  when 
the  deep,  dark  hold  of  the  Caribou  should 
give  up  the  rest  of  our  "grub." 

There  is  a  Hudson  Bay  post  there,  where 
the  mighty  Michipocoten  swings  around  the 
thousandth  bend  and  slips  at  last  into 
Superior.  That  is,  the  buildings  are  there — 
low,  rambling,  picturesque  old  structures 
of  logs,  with  great  beams  cut  by  hand  a 
century  ago  and  little  diamond  window  panes. 
There  is  the  old  house  of  "The  Factor"  and 
smaller  houses  where  the  coureurs  des  bois 
and  trappers  and  defenders  of  the  H.  B.  C. 
once  made  the  northern  midnight  howl 
with  epic-songs  and  journey-end  celebrations. 
But  these  buildings  are  deserted  now.  The 
Hudson  Bay  Company  has  moved  its  post 
up  to  Missanabie.  We  camped  in  the  front 
[156] 


Belated  Discoveries 


yard  of  the  silent  post  with  the  ghosts  of 
other  days. 

We  had  put  up  the  tents — the  A-tents — 
and  got  out  the  blankets.  George  had  filled 
the  water-pail  from  a  spring  and  Tommie  had 
the  pot  on  the  fire  and  the  potatoes  peeled 
and  the  coffee  and  bacon  ready.  In  the 
lull,  waiting  for  Jim  and  His  Lordship,  I 
thought  it  wise  to  run  over  the  map  and  the 
campaign  and  route  with  George  Andre. 

Right  there  I  made  a  discovery  that  jolted 
me  as  I  had  n't  been  jolted  for  years.  In 
my  ignorance  I  had  planned  to  start  out  at 
sunrise  to-morrow  with  the  flotilla  and  pad- 
dle briskly  and  light-heartedly  right  up  the 
Michipocoten  River.  George  put  a  gnarled 
finger  on  a  spot  of  the  map  about  fifteen 
miles  from  the  rock  where  we  were  sitting 
and  said  firmly : 

"Take  a  week  to  get  there. " 

"Why?"  I  asked  with  sinking  heart. 

"Water  swift,   all  rapids,"   said   George. 
"Have  to  pole  and  line  all  the  way." 
[i57] 


A  Beatific  Error 


"But  we  must  get  up  there,"  I  insisted, 
pointing  to  Lake  Manitowick,  a  good  sixty 
miles  by  the  river,  "and  do  it  in  a  week, 
too." 

"All  right,"  said  George.  "We  go  over 
these  lakes  here,  make  portage,  and  do  it  in 
two  days." 

"How  about  the  portage?"  I  asked  fear- 
fully. 

"Seven-mile  one  to  start  with,  to  Lake 
Wa-Wa,"  said  George. 

"  Do  you  think  we  are  carrying  a  moving- 
van  in  the  outfit?"  I  gasped. 

"Mebbe  I  get  a  team — at  the  Mission," 
said  George. 

"One  team  to  tote  four  canoes  and  this 
colossal  scenic  production?" 

"Sure,"  said  George.  "Get  wagon  with 
rack." 

"Take  a  canoe  and  get  the  team  and  the 
teamster, "  I  said. 

George  did  it.  He  paddled  over  to  the 
Indian  Mission  and  back  and  reported  that 
[158] 


By  Water?  or  Moving- Van? 

the  team  would  be  waiting  for  us  with  the 
morning's  sun. 

We  had  a  surprise  for  Jim  and  His  Lordship 
when  they  puffed  into  camp  with  another 
launch-load  of  "eats."  But  they  didn't 
grumble  or  call  me  any  of  the  things  I  de- 
served and  fully  expected  to  be  called. 
The  optimism  and  charity — and  appetite — 
of  the  wilderness  had  already  melted  the 
iron  in  their  hearts.  In  gratitude  I  opened 
some  ox-tail  soup  and  two  cans  of  pork  and 
beans.  Right  there  Tommie's  culinary  gen- 
ius, hidden  these  decades  beneath  a  half- 
bushel,  began  declaring  itself.  We  sang 
and  perpetrated  bad  puns  and  capered  as  we 
spread  our  blankets  over  balsam  boughs 
that  William  Teddy  had  cut,  and  sweet 
marsh-hay  filched  from  the  H.  B.  C.'s  de- 
serted barn.  We  rolled  into  those  blankets, 
too,  at  the  time  when  we  should  be  just 
about  finishing  a  huge,  indigestible  dinner 
back  in  the  big  city.  The  camp  was  very 
still  in  the  stillness  of  the  northern  night, 
[i59l 


A  Beatific  Error 


when  I  took  a  last  look  at  the  bright  northern 
stars  and  hearkened  to  the  surf  of  Superior 
and  the  snores  of  James.  I  opened  the  flap 
of  His  Lordship's  tent  cautiously.  He  had 
his  moustaches  in  curl  papers  and  was 
manicuring  his  nails  by  the  light  of  an  electric 
lantern.  I  was  n't  sure  how  His  Lordship 
was  going  to  enjoy  and  last  out  this  trip.  He 
waved  his  hand  at  me  gayly  and  said : 

"My  dear  old  chap,  this  is  perfectly 
ripping — I  say — is  n't  it?" 

Which  it  certainly  was.  Then  the  pack 
of  half -wolf  Indian  dogs  at  the  Mission  began 
howling  and  I  dreamed  that  I  had  my  eager 
fingers  around  the  neck  of  that  "no-trout- 
in-the-Michipocoten  "-spectre  and  was  chok- 
ing it  to  death  with  the  full  delight  of  a 
pleasure  long  deferred. 


[160] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AND 

PORTAGES  THE  POTATOES 

THE  surf  of  Superior,  a  mile  away,  was 
softly  grumbling  and  the  falls  of  the 
Magpie  River,  just  around  the  bend,  could 
be  heard  roaring,  so  still  was  the  wilderness 
morning,  when  the  east  glowed  from  coral 
to  crimson  and  we  emerged  from  those 
A-tents  to  begin  the  day  of  days.  The  valley, 
wherein  we  and  the  old  Hudson  Bay  post  had 
been  sleeping,  and  the  broad  waters  of  the 
Michipocoten,  with  its  sand-bar  capriciously 
thrown  up  at  the  post-gates,  were  still  in 
deep  shadow. 

While  Tommie  urged  along  the  breakfast, 

in  its  essentials  virtually  an  echo  and  encore 

of  last  night's  dinner,  we  struck  the  tents, 

did  up  packs,  and  made  another  substantial 

ii  [161] 


Profanity  Portage 


cut  in  the  importable  commissary.  About 
two  hundred  pounds  of  tinned  stuff  was  left 
with  the  hospitable  family  of  Launchman 
Coleman. 

All  that  which  had  been  O.  K.  'ed  by  four 
men  as  bed-rock  and  absolutely  indispensable 
was  committed  to  one  pile  and  I  viewed  that 
pile  with  growing  apprehension.  His  Lord- 
ship's collection  of  toilet  articles — it  would 
have  made  a  tidy  little  nucleus  for  any  enter- 
prising druggist — we  had  to  steal  from  His 
Lordship's  elaborate  duffel-bags  or  fairly 
tear  from  his  clinging  fingers.  It  was  an  hour 
of  heroic  sacrifices  and  recriminations.  At 
the  very  last  moment  William  Teddy  tabooed 
the  tent-poles  and  on  each  of  the  twenty- 
odd  subsequent  portages  we  thanked  W.  T. 
for  that.  I  looked  at  the  four  canoes  hauled 
out  on  the  gravel  beach  and  that  soaring 
pile  of  duffel  and  feared  greatly.  George 
did  it.  He  stowed  it  all  away  somehow. 
We  climbed  over  the  assorted  cargoes  into 
the  canoes  gingerly.  Jim  and  Pete  were 
[162] 


Four  Canoes — and  Dawn 

the  first  to  swing  out  into  the  stream;  then 
His  Lordship  and  Billy  T.;  then  Fred  and 
Tommie.  George  and  I  took  a  last  look 
around,  for  an  abandoned  camp-site  gen- 
erally yields  a  wealth  of  things  forgotten.  At 
last  four  canoes  struggled  around  the  sand- 
bar and  slipped  across  the  current  toward 
the  Mission  just  as  the  sun  broke  through 
the  mountain  wall  to  the  east  and  streamed 
down  a  ravine  upon  us.  Nan-i-bou-jou  was 
bestowing  godly  smiles  upon  the  expedition 
at  its  outset.  I  heard  His  Lordship  com- 
plimenting the  scenery  to  William  Teddy 
who  indulgently  grunted. 

With  our  landing  came  the  first  taste  of 
the  wealth  of  portaging  to  come.  It  was  not 
more  than  twenty  feet  high,  perhaps,  that 
bank,  but  it  rose  sheer  from  the  beach  and, 
while  we  elevated  the  whole  outfit,  canoes 
and  all,  up  that  height,  some  thirty  Indian 
dogs  fought  delightedly  for  the  privilege  of 
sniffing  our  commissary  department  most 
critically.  Then  the  first  forgotten  essential 
[163] 


"  Profanity  Portage 


was  remembered — pack-straps — now  repos- 
ing languidly  in  Jim's  extra  duffel-bag  in  the 
warehouse.  We  had  to  rout  out  the  keeper 
of  the  lone  general-store  for  the  pack-straps. 
William  Teddy  took  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  buy  for  himself  a  bottle  of  "pain- 
killer." The  Canadian  government  slaps 
into  jail  the  merchant  who  sells  whiskey  to 
an  Indian.  So  the  merchant  sells  the  In- 
dian "pain-killer,"  which,  taken  in  sufficient 
quantities,  kills  pain  and  dull  care  and  con- 
sciousness as  if  assaulting  them  with  a  lead 
pipe.  It  is  the  vilest  mess  that  cunning  and 
avarice  can  possibly  concoct.  But  it  suited 
William  Teddy. 

We  lashed  the  four  canoes  to  the  wagon- 
rack.  Indeed,  we  did  better  than  that. 
We  managed  to  strap  most  of  the  outfit  to 
that  wagon.  Some  things  of  admitted  deco- 
rative value,  such  as  frying-pans  and  broilers 
and  coffee-pots  and  a  pair  of  His  Lordship's 
pajamas  that  fell  out  of  the  pack,  we  tied 
around  the  horses'  necks.  They  were  a 
[164] 


Wa-Wa— Seven  Miles! 

marvel  of  condensed  and  economical  loading 
— that  team  and  wagon — when  we  were  ready 
to  start. 

"Wa-Wa— next  stop,"  shouted  Fred  glee- 
fully, as  he  poked  His  Lordship  smartly  in 
the  ribs.  The  driver,  high  up  on  the  prow 
of  the  topmost  canoe,  cracked  a  villainous- 
looking  black-snake  and  we  were  off — to 
the  headwaters  of  the  Michipocoten,  be- 
ginning with  a  very  husky  seven-mile  hike. 

The  first  four  miles  was  up-hill.  The  trail 
that  we  followed,  with  William  Teddy  lead- 
ing, corkscrewed  about  and  grand-right-and- 
lefted  with  the  tote-road.  We  re-united 
with  the  team  every  once  in  a  while  to 
tighten  up  the  canoe-lashings  and  count 
the  bags  and  rods  and  kettles  that  had  been 
shaken  out  and  sprinkled  along  the  trail. 

When  about  four  miles  out  on  that  road, 
I  stopped  Jim  to  make  him  a  promise.  I 
promised  Jim,  that  the  first  thing  I  should  do, 
when  I  got  back  to  the  Big  City,  would  be 
to  kill  a  certain  manufacturer  of  "hunting 
[165] 


Profanity  Portage 


boots."  Did  you  ever  have  the  nails  of  a 
new  pair  of  boots  work  through  the  soles — 
lots  of  nails  in  each  sole — of  your  boots,  when 
you  were  in  the  exact  mathematical  centre 
of  a  seven-mile  trail?  That  is  one  of  the 
chiefest  charms  and  advantages  of  brand- 
new  boots.  For  a  while  you  try  to  make 
yourself  believe  you  're  mistaken  and  there  're 
no  nails  transfixing  your  quivering  soles  at 
all.  Then  you  try  walking  on  your  heels 
and  then  toes  and  then  sides  of  your  feet. 
You  sit  down  and  take  off  your  boots  while 
the  black-flies  come  for  miles  around  to  coast 
down  your  nose  and  hold  Marathon  races 
on  your  glasses,  and  you  take  off  those 
damnable  boots  and  sympathize  with  your 
feet.  That  is  a  stupid  thing  to  do,  because 
the  boots  have  to  go  on  again  and  you  prob- 
ably don't  put  the  nails  back  in  the  same 
holes  they  've  made  in  your  feet.  So  the  nails 
make  new  holes  for  themselves,  until  you 
know  that  your  each  sole  looks  like  the  top 
of  a  pepper-box.  I  ripped  chunks  out  of  the 
[166] 


"The  Deserted  Village " 

tail  of  my  flannel  shirt  and  made  insoles. 
My  boots  were  fairly  squdgey  with  blood  at 
the  end  of  that  trail.  His  Lordship  prom- 
ised to  go  with  me  to  the  maker  of  "hunting 
boots"  and  give  him  "both  barrels,"  in  case 
I  missed  him. 

Then  we  came  to  Lake  Wa-Wa.  It  opened 
out  suddenly  at  our  very  feet,  as  those  im- 
pulsive northern  lakes  generally  do.  But 
the  sight  of  houses,  a  whole  town,  surprised 
us  more; — hotel,  "The  Balmoral";  general- 
store,  post-office,  blacksmith  shop,  all  the 
urban  appurtenances  are  there  on  the  shores 
of  Lake  Wa-Wa.  And  they  're  all  deserted. 
Faded  signboards  and  shutters  are  flapping 
in  the  wind.  It  is  a  ghastly,  forlorn  place — 
is  Wa-Wa — when  the  wind  whistles  through 
the  broken  window-panes  and  telegraph 
wires.  That  was  another  of  Mr.  Clergue's 
splendid  dreams.  He  built  Wa-Wa  in  one 
sitting  and  peopled  it  and  started  it  out 
thriving  and  hopeful.  Having  built  the 
town  and  peopled  it,  Mr.  Clergue  said: 
[167] 


Profanity  Portage 


"Let 's  see  if  we  can't  find  a  gold  mine  or 
something  around  here  to  employ  and  support 
the  town."  But  he  didn't  find  it  and  the 
Wa-Wa  proletariat  gave  the  keys  back  to 
Mr.  Clergue  and  left  "our  beautiful  city" 
to  the  wolves  and  bob-cats.  I  borrowed  a 
machine  hammer  and  a  chisel  from  the  phan- 
tom smithy  and  made  over  the  sub-water- 
line  of  those  boots  to  meet  the  needs  of 
comfort. 

We  had  to  paddle  Lake  Wa-Wa  from  end 
to  end,  five  miles  of  towering,  heavily  wooded 
shores.  A  thunder-shower  came  up  and 
bathed  us  gently.  Then  the  wind  stirred 
up  a  sea,  but  wind  and  sea  were  directly 
astern  and  the  four  canoes  were  bowled 
along  on  the  crest  of  the  young  day's  en- 
thusiasm. With  George  in  the  stern  of  my 
canoe,  my  responsibilities  oppressed  me  not 
at  all.  He  is,  without  exception,  the  best 
man  in  a  canoe  I  ever  saw.  And  that  is  not 
remarkable.  George  carries  the  mail  be- 
tween Michipocoten  Harbor  and  Missanabie 
[1681 


Andre  Canoeman 


on  the  Canadian  Pacific.  They  are  fifty 
miles  apart  and  George,  carrying  a  hundred- 
and-fifty-pound  pack,  runs  the  trails,  [finds 
and  leaves  a  canoe  on  each  of  the  half- 
dozen  lakes,  and  makes  the  round  trip  twice 
every  eight  days.  Why  should  n't  George 
know  the  country  and  handle  a  canoe  most 
masterfully? 

Once  during  the  gorgeous  paddle  to  the  head 
of  Wa-Wa  I  heard  a  wolf  howl  contempla- 
tively back  among  the  ridges.  Three  flocks 
of  duck — all  teal,  I  believe — flew  over  us 
and  surveyed  us  with  frank  and  fearless 
curiosity. 

The  sun  was  in  the  zenith  when  the  portage 
loomed  ahead.  George  and  I  went  into 
executive  session.  We  decided  to  lunch  and, 
while  lunching,  to  send  the  Indians  ahead  with 
the  canoes  over  the  half-mile  portage  to  the 
first  little  lake.  Right  there  we  had  to  do 
some  emergency  boat-repairing.  The  builder 
of  those  canoes  had  looked  no  farther  than 
the  polite  pastimes  of  the  park-lagoons. 
[169] 


"Profanity  Portage" 


There  was  no  thwart  amidships  upon  which 
to  make  a  sling  for  the  head  of  the  Indian 
carrying  the  canoe.  In  ten  minutes  George 
and  William  Teddy  had  converted  those  four 
canoes  into  the  bush-going  craft  they  should 
be,  while  Jim  and  Fred  and  I  stood  by  and 
gave  minute  instructions  which  were  uni. 
formly  and  properly  disregarded.  That  was 
a  boisterous  and  silly  lunch.  I  look  back  now 
upon  the  blatant  confidence  and  premature 
optimism  of  that  hour  with  profoundest  pity 
for  the  four  of  us.  We  all  told  one  another: 

"Say — this  trip  isn't  so  tough  after  all. 
Just  enough  walking  and  portaging  to  keep 
us  in  shape." 

And  all  that  sort  of  tenderfootish  rot. 
And  George  heard  it  and  grinned  saturninely. 

Then  we  started.  The  dinkey  little  half- 
mile  portage  just  served  to  strengthen  the 
illusion.  We  brought  up  on  the  shore  of  an 
absurd  little  lake,  like  a  park-pond,  and 
paddled  "across  it,  with  our  after-lunch  pipes 
still  fuming. 

[170] 


Elation  Premature 


George  said  that  the  next  portage  was 
"quite  leetle  walk — yes — mebbe  two  mile  and 
a  half — sure — 'bout  dat. " 

We  hit  the  tote-road  again.  His  Lordship 
felt  ambitious  then.  His  lunch  had  nourished 
him  and  his  heart  was  singing.  He  wanted 
to  show  us — particularly  George  Andre — 
that  a  blooming  aborigine  had  n't  anything 
to  show  him.  He  picked  out  the  sack  of 
potatoes  for  that  portage.  Potatoes  in  bulk 
stimulate  neither  the  memory  nor  the  imag- 
ination. There  is  no  poetry,  no  inspiration,  no 
reserve  intellectual  force,  no  response  to  kind- 
ness or  devotion — nothing  but  coarse,  back- 
breaking,  soul-revolting  weight  in  a  sack  of  po- 
tatoes. We  wondered  at  His  Lordship's  taste 
when  he  selected  the  potatoes  and  left  the  cam- 
eras and  rod-cases.  But  away  he  went  blithely 
out  on  that  two-and-a-half-mile  portage. 
Fred  took  a  pack  that  quite  eclipsed  Fred's 
physical  self — and  he  went  through  with  it, 
too.  George,  Billy  T.,  Tomrnie,  and  Pete  had 
toted  the  canoes  two  miles,  where  the  trail 
[171! 


Profanity  Portage 


breaks  off  from  the  tote-road,  dropped  them, 
and  come  back  for  another  load.  Somebody 
had  to  wait  and  see  that  nothing  was  left 
on  the  portage.  The  best  Indian  is  distrait 
when  he  's  packing.  So  I  was  the  last  to 
leave  the  landing-place.  I  won't  say  what 
I  carried.  The  first  mile  I  was  ashamed  of  it 
and  glad  I  was  last.  Then  I  began  thinking 
of  the  others'  selfishness  and  thoughtlessness 
in  giving  me  all  the  heavy  work;  until,  at  a 
mile  and  a  half,  I  was  just  about  the  shining- 
est,  groggiest  little  martyr  that  ever  wan- 
dered the  woodland  without  a  harp  or  a  halo. 
But  then  I  overtook  His  Lordship.  He 
was  sitting  on  his  sack  of  potatoes  with  his 
face  buried  in  his  hands.  I  spoke  lightly, 
cheerily,  and  he  gasped  something  through 
his  fingers.  I  blundered  then.  I  offered  to 
carry  that  sack  of  potatoes — rather  to  try 
to  carry  that  sack  of  potatoes — for  a  while. 
What  I  received  was  precisely  what  I  de- 
served. His  Lordship  arose,  flung  the  po- 
tatoes upon  his  poor,  tousled,  steaming  head, 
[172] 


Packs  and  Viewpoints 


and  staggered  off  with  them,  without  another 
word.  I  had  blurted  out  my  suspicion  that 
His  Lordship  was  a  tenderfoot,  a  not  even 
particularly  "game"  tenderfoot.  Then  and 
there  I  began  making-over  my  estimate  of 
His  Lordship — because  throughout  that  trip, 
whenever  there  was  a  man's  work  or  two 
men's  work  to  be  done,  His  Lordship  was 
camping  right  on  the  job — every  minute. 
It  simply  goes  to  show  that  an  expensive 
camping-toilet  and  waxed  moustaches  can 
and  do  disguise  the  kind  of  stuff  of  which 
wilderness-friendships  and  enduring  admira- 
tion are  made. 

We  finished  that  long  portage  in  two  relays. 
Then  a  paddle  of  a  few  hundred  yards  across 
a  silent,  marshy  little  lake.  Then  a  portage 
of  another  few  hundred  yards  and  another 
lake. 

We  were,  as  usual,  wholly  unprepared  for 
the  horrors  of  "Profanity  Portage."     George 
had  said  it  was — "Guess-mebbe  'bout  a  mile 
— sure — leetle  more  or  less. " 
[i73] 


Profanity  Portage 


At  first  the  trail  was  open  and  aboveboard 
and  promised  to  be  good.  When  it  had  led 
us  into  the  densest  sort  of  undergrowth 
and  tamarack-swamps,  that  trail,  laughing 
derisively,  disappeared  into  the  ground  and 
left  us  scattering  ourselves  to  the  four  winds 
on  moose-trails  and  caribou-trails.  The 
Indians  had  taken  the  canoes  over  and 
George  came  back  and  rounded  us  up  and 
shooed  us  along  before  him.  The  last  half- 
mile  might  have  been  the  descent  to  Dante's 
Inferno.  It  was  down  a  long  hill.  The 
bushes  were  up  to  one's  ears  and  the  ground 
was  paved  with  irregular  shaped  rocks  about 
twice  the  size  of  one's  head.  With  a  hundred- 
pound  pack  upon  one's  back,  one's  time  was 
fairly  evenly  divided  between  falling  down  and 
getting  up  again.  When  we  re-united,  steam- 
ing and  cursing,  on  the  shores  of  another  lake, 
we  gathered  around  George  and  demanded 
more  candor  and  precision,  henceforth,  in 
his  diagnoses. 

Then  came  "Beauty  Lake."  We  named 
[i74l 


'Then  Came  'Beauty  Lake'!" 


'Something  in  the  Way  of  Wild  Waterways   Worth 
While." 


Then  Compensations- 
it — and  named  it  "Beauty  Lake,"  because 
"Magnificent  Lake"  or  "Exquisite  Lake" 
seemed  hyperbole  for  the  wilderness.  It 
must  have  been  put  there  for  a  purpose — 
probably  to  repay  the  man  who  had  exhausted 
his  body  and  his  vocabulary  stumbling  over 
"Profanity  Portage."  It  looked  "trouty," 
too.  But  we  had  to  make  camp  somewhere 
and  it  was  six  o'clock  and  the  dark  clouds 
piling  up  in  the  west  looked  threatening. 

We  portaged  again — maybe  twenty  rods, — 
crossed  an  unclean  pond  of  muck  and  slimy 
reeds,  lugged  everything  up  a  steep  hill — 
and  pondered.  There  was  Hawk  Lake, 
three  miles  long,  at  our  feet,  and  a  very 
nasty  looking  thunder-storm  at  our  backs. 
Then  came  grumblings  over  in  the  hills. 
It  is  not  nice  to  have  wet  blankets  one's  first 
night  on  a  trip  of  fast  travelling,  like  this.: 

Should  we  make   camp   on  this  hill — an 

unpromising  site — and  beat  out  the  storm— 

or  take  a  chance  and  make  a  run  for  it — 

for   a   more   level   and   agreeable   camping 

[I75J 


"Profanity  Portage 


place?  George  put  it  up  to  me.  I  put  it 
up  to  the  North  Shore  Club.  It  seemed  so 
much  sportier  to  take  the  chance  of  the 
ducking,  that  no  one  hesitated.  His  Lord- 
ship— good  sport — was  quite  jubilant  over 
the  gambling  element  in  the  situation. 

As  we  swung  out  into  Hawk  Lake  George 
bade  me  look  over  the  side  of  the  canoe  and 
watch  the  bottom.  When  we  came  to  the 
spot,  I  saw  the  water  bubbling  and  there, 
far  down  in  the  lake's  floor,  I  saw  a  gaping 
hole,  perhaps  a  yard  across,  out  of  which  a 
great  spring  was  gushing.  There  is,  un- 
doubtedly, a  colony  of  trout  around  that 
spring.  But  the  storm  was  giving  us  a  pretty 
race. 

For  awhile,  the  four  canoes  raced  abreast, 
eight  men  putting  their  backs  into  every  stroke 
of  the  paddles.  Then  George's  flawless 
form — not  mine — began  to  tell  and  we  pulled 
away  from  the  field  inch  by  inch.  Had  there 
been  anybody  within  twenty  miles  that 
evening,  he  would  have  seen  all  the  Hawk 
[176! 


I 

c 
o 

a 


The  Roar  of  the  Storm 

Lake  canoe-records  go  bump.  We  had  only 
the  roar  of  the  approaching  storm  to  keep 
us  pegging  at  it,  but  it  served.  We  would 
reach  each  successive  camping-spot  that 
George  had  prophesied,  only  to  find  it  too 
rocky  or  too  bushy  or  too  exposed  or  too 
sandy — and  push  on.  Jim,  in  the  last  canoe 
with  phlegmatic  Pete, — thunder-storms  are  as 
nothing  to  native  indolence  such  as  Pete's, — 
began  urging  a  speedy  landing,  then  order- 
ing it,  then  praying  for  it — then  screaming 
wildly  for  it. 

William  Teddy  took  the  situation  in  hand 
at  this  dramatic  juncture.  He  had  trapped 
bears  up  there  the  winter  before.  He  shouted 
to  George  in  flawless  Chippewa  and  pointed — 
but  he  pointed  to  the  extreme  end  of  Hawk 
Lake,  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  We  turned 
and  streaked  for  it — leaving  wrathful  James 
shouting  in  our  wake. 

Billy  T.'s  inspiration  was  worth  it.  Back 
ten  yards  from  the  broad  sand  beach  we 
found  a  grove  of  birches,  with  the  ground 
12  [177] 


"  Profanity  Portage 


carpeted  with  moss  and  plenty  of  room  for 
three  tents  and  the  dining-fly.  The  briskness 
and  precision  with  which  George  and  Billy 
T.  and  Pete  slapped  up  those  tents  was  pretty 
to  see — if  we  had  had  time  to  see  it — which 
we  had  n't.  Nan-i-bou-jou  just  turned  that 
storm  cloud  inside-out  directly  over  that 
grove  of  birches.  We  grabbed  the  canoes, 
turned  them  bottom-up,  and  thrust  the  bed- 
ding and  perishable  supplies,  such  as  the 
flour  and  sugar,  beneath  them.  In  two 
minutes  the  setting  sun  and  brilliant  blue 
northern  sky  popped  out  again. 

While  things  were  sizzling  over  Tommie's 
fire  and  George  and  Billy  T.  were  cutting 
balsam  and  filling  lanterns,  Jim  and  Fred, 
indefatigable  fishermen,  sallied  forth  upon 
the  bosom  of  Hawk  Lake  with  canoe  and 
steel  rod  and  trolling  spoon  to  see  what  they 
should  see.  Fred  had  n't  paddled  ten  yards 
from  the  beach,  Jim  casting,  when  first  a 
muttered  exclamation  and  then  pandemonium 
broke  loose.  The  lake  was  alive — not  with 
[178] 


Pre-Prandial  Incident 


trout  as  we  hoped,  for  it  looked  likely — but 
with  big,  green,  hungry,  villainous  grass-pike. 
They  could  have  filled  the  canoes — so  de- 
lighted were  those  pike  with  the  glittering 
novelty  in  the  spinner — if  Tommie's  voice, 
back  in  the  bushes,  had  n't  heralded  dinner. 

I  have  been  body-  and  soul- wearied  on  the 
trail,  several  times.  But  never  did  every 
bone  and  muscle  and  nerve  cry  aloud  in 
agony  as  they  did  that  night  on  Hawk  Lake, 
when  we  had  finished  our  pipes  on  the  beach 
and  I  tried  to  get  up  to  fall  into  my  blankets. 
We  had  done  twenty-five  miles  since  sun- 
rise and  a  good  fifteen  of  it  had  been  portaging 
with  back-breaking  packs.  I  craved  another 
of  George's  prophecies.  I  could  n't  move, 
so  I  called  him  and  he  came  out  of  the  bushes, 
without  a  sound,  and  stood  in  the  light  of 
the  fire. 

"This  is  all  right,  George,"  I  said,  "as 
pretty  a  little  cross-country  sprint  as  ever 
broke  the  great  heart  of  a  college  athlete. 
But  when  do  we  get  trout?" 
[i79l 


Profanity  Portage" 


George  looked  each  one  of  us  squarely 
in  the  eye  and  said  frankly: 

"If  we  go  fast  like  we  did  to-day,  t'ree 
o'clock  to-morrow  afternoon — I  show  you  trout 
— big  ones — sure — mebbe  two,  t'ree  pound." 

"No  metaphors  now  about  this,  George?" 
Fred  interpolated. 

"Sure — all  trout,"  George  insisted  stoutly. 

"If  I  could  move  two  inches,"  I  said, 
"I  should  certainly  do  something  modest 
and  timely  as  befits  the  occasion." 

"My  dear  old  chap,"  cried  His  Lordship, 
springing  to  his  feet  as  agile  as  a  freshman 
hurdler,  "permit  me.  I  can  put  my  hand 
right  on  it." 

And  he  did.  He  put  his  hand  right  on  the 
biggest  quart  flask  I  ever  saw — and  a  quart 
can  be  made  to  look  insignificant,  too,  at  the 
end  of  a  portage. 

His  Lordship — bless  his  stout,  generous, 
capacious  heart — handed  the  flask  first  to 
George,  who  looked  at  it  critically,  then 
raised  it  smilingly: 

[180] 


I S 


Felicitations 


"To  the  trout"— then  diffidently— " and 
de  best  coureurs  des  bois  for  genteelmen — 
what  I  ever  see — yet — sure,  mebbe — what 
I  ever  see. " 

It  was  all  very  theatric  and  delightful. 
But  we  had  sleep  to  get  and  the  Great 
Mystery  of  the  Michipocoten  to  solve  with 
the  morrow's  sun — just  there  over  the  eastern 
ridges. 


[181] 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PERILS  OF  RUNNING  WHITE  WATER  FIND 
WILLIAM  TEDDY'S  TONGUE 

WE  might  have  been  camping  on  Hawk 
Lake  or  Mt.  McKinley  or  at  Dr. 
Cook's  debatable  Etah,  for  all  I  knew  or 
cared,  when  Fred  awakened  me  that  morning 
— awakened  me  by  dribbling  the  contents  of 
a  pail  of  drinking  water  down  into  my  inno- 
cent young  face.  Then  I  tried  to  make 
good  my  promise  to  wring  his  neck.  Inas- 
much as  Fred  used  to  be  a  college-wrestler 
and  half-back  and  had  never  really  outgrown 
it,  I  found  my  efforts  to  be  diverting,  but 
up-hill  work.  We  effected  an  armistice  and 
conceived  it  to  be  the  neighborly  thing  to 
take  what  was  left  in  the  water  pail  and  go 
and  awaken  Jim  and  His  Lordship.  We 
tiptoed  across  the  dewy  glade  and  peered 
[182] 


These  Rocks  Are  Nan-i-bou-jou  and  Family. 


Of  Course,  we  Lunched  here  at  the  Lower    End    of 
the  Rapids. 


Call  to  Breakfast 


cautiously  into — an  empty  tent.  In  a  few 
minutes  we  heard  shouts  from  the  lake.  They 
were  mixing  it  up  with  those  unsophisticated 
Hawk-Lake  pickerel  again. 

Tommie's  call  to  breakfast — back  there  in 
the  green  gloom  of  the  birches — reminded 
Fred  that  he  wanted  to  shave.  That  was 
a  curious  phenomenon  provocative  of  much 
discussion,  how  a  summons  to  eat  always 
recalled  to  Fred  the  things  he  had  intended 
to  do  before  eating.  He  would  sit  around 
for  an  hour  or  so  before  mealtime,  languid 
and  care-free — then,  when  Tommie  shouted 
"breakfast'*  or  "dinner,"  Fred  would  spring 
up  full  of  action  and  determination  and  rush 
off  to  take  a  bath  or  clean  his  gun  or  write 
a  few  home  letters.  For  Fred  there  must 
have  been  some  hidden  meaning,  singularly 
potent  and  suggestive,  in  Tommie's  mono- 
syllabic call  to  "grub." 

When  we  had  piled  the  outfit  on  the  beach 
to  load  the  four  canoes,  our  position  on  the 
map  was  made  clear  to  us  graphically,  yes, 
[183] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

even  geographically.  There  was  McVeigh's 
Creek  rumbling  into  Hawk  Lake  scarcely 
a  hundred  yards  away. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that,  no  matter  what 
allurements  the  trail  may  hold  out  just 
ahead,  the  real  woodsman  never  leaves  a 
snug  camp  without  a  pang  of  regret.  And 
barring  Tommie's  fried  pickerel  which  at 
breakfast  we  had  valiantly  and  unsuccess- 
fully assaulted,  Hawk  Lake  camp  was  a  very 
rollicking  sort  of  a  memory. 

The  gorgeous  day  was  still  an  infant  when 
the  canoe-keels  grated  on  the  beach  and  we 
pushed  off,  George  and  I  leading,  to  hunt  out 
the  mouth  of  Hawk  Lake  River.  It  did  n't 
demand  much  hunting.  We  slid  into  it 
smoothly.  Then  followed  some  six  hours  of 
enchantment.  Hawk  Lake  River  is  an  ex- 
quisite little  toy-stream,  sometimes  scarcely 
wide  enough  to  permit  two  canoes  to  go 
abreast.  Again,  it  widens  out  into  a  silent 
lake,  four  or  five  hundred  yards  across. 
Sometimes  the  canoe  slips  silently  over  deep, 
[184] 


Exquisite  Toy-Stream 


dark  channels.  Sometimes  the  stream  shal- 
lows up  abruptly  and  goes  giggling  over 
pebbles  scarcely  awash.  We  were  in  the 
water  much  of  the  time,  lifting  the  canoes 
over  baby-rapids.  For  miles  you  glide  along 
over  moss  and  sunken  logs  in  the  deep  shade 
of  a  leafy  canopy  that  arches  the  river  from 
shore  to  shore  and  shuts  out  the  blue  sky  and 
morning  sun  from  this  green-flecked  ca- 
thedral in  which  God  and  nature  as  God 
made  it  are  being  worshipped  throughout 
those  stupendous,  silent  processes  of  the 
wilderness.  Sometimes  a  school  of  fish, 
darting  out  from  some  submarine  jungle, 
gave  us  a  sensation.  But  they  were  lowly 
and  abhorred  suckers,  not  trout.  First,  we 
portaged  around  a  log- jam;  then,  around  a 
furious  stretch  of  the  river  where  there  were 
more  rocks  than  water  and  portaging  was 
easier  on  the  trail  than  in  the  bed  of  the 
stream.  Once,  at  the  foot  of  some  quite 
sizable  rapids,  which  we  ran  in  the  canoes 
and  would  have  fished,  if  we  had  had  time, 
[185] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

we  came  upon  a  canoe  and  a  parcel  hanging 
from  a  tree.  The  canoe,  of  course,  belonged 
to  George's  substitute  on  the  mail-route,  but 
the  mystery  of  the  parcel  will  always  remain 
unsolved. 

Four  portages  in  all  we  made  before  noon, 
the  longest  about  a  mile  and  a  half.  On  this 
trail,  trudging  along  in  the  rear-guard  to  see 
that  every  pack  had  at  least  started  over 
the  portage,  I  came  upon  a  most  attractive 
and  unusual  exhibit  for  the  wilderness. 
First  I  found  three  clean  handkerchiefs  of 
fine  texture  and  great  price.  The  brand 
of  sachet  lingering  lovingly  in  their  linen 
depths  would  have  marked  them  as  His 
Lordship's,  even  if  the  embroidered  initials 
had  not.  That  was  a  good  starter,  but  even 
that  left  me  unprepared  for  the  lavish,  almost 
indelicate  display  of  intimate  articles  to  come. 
After  I  had  picked  up  toothbrush,  paja- 
mas, pound  of  pipe  tobacco,  case  of  calling 
cards,  and  a  beautiful  pair  of  bedroom  slip- 
pers, the  real  substance  and  big  features  of  the 
[186] 


A  Setting  Becoming  to  Most  Any  Canoe. 


To    Make    Camp   or   to    Push    on — Time   6.30  P.M. 


Wilderness  Exhibits 


wardrobe  began  to  show  on  the  wabu-bushes 
and  caribou-moss.  I  speedily  added  a  pair 
of  trousers,  one  boot,  a  flannel  shirt,  and  a 
sweater  to  my  collection.  When  I  issued 
forth  from  the  portage  and  joined  the  expe- 
dition, Fred  said,  "Hello — what  the  devil 
is  this — the  'old-clothes  man'?  "  The  carry- 
ing of  his  duffel-bag  wrong-end-up  cost  His 
Lordship  a  box  of  two  hundred  cigarettes — 
we  never  did  find  those. 

The  river  quite  suddenly  decided  to  do 
something  in  the  way  of  wild  waterways 
worth  while  and  spread  itself  out  into  a  dainty 
lake.  The  map  calls  it  Miller  Lake,  and  who- 
ever Mr.  Miller  is,  his  judgment  in  lakes  is 
most  admirable. 

At  the  head  of  that  lake  we  lunched. 
While  Tommie  fed  us,  George  with  Billy  T. 
and  Pete  carried  the  canoes  over  the  half- 
mile  portage  to  Blue  Lake;  Jim,  His  Lordship, 
and  Fred  played  a  most  boisterous  rubber 
of  "auction-bridge,"  and  I  brought  the  neg- 
lected Log  substantially  up  to  date. 
.  [187] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

That  portage  itself  was  an  experience 
unique.  It  led  through  a  grove  of  giant 
cedars,  jack-pines,  Norways,  and  birches. 
Every  tree  was  a  Titan  and  the  country  was 
curiously  open  and  consequently  beautiful. 
It  reminded  me  of  the  north  country  as  the 
designers  of  magazine-covers  always  think 
it  is. 

Down  we  plunked  upon  our  temperamental 
little  friend,  Hawk  Lake  River,  again.  Then 
we  came  upon  a  shallow  alcove-like  pond,  full 
of  pike,  sunning  themselves  in  the  shallow 
water,  covered  with  lily-pads. 

There  were,  literally,  hundreds  of  pike. 
Jim  was  with  great  difficulty  restrained  from 
unlimbering  his  rod  and  spinner.  Fred 
shot  several  with  his  little  pocket  power-rifle. 

To  be  frank,  I  did  n't  at  all  suspect  we  were 
in  Lake  Manitowick,  until  a  wave  came  over 
the  bow  of  the  canoe  and  cuddled  cutely  in 
my  unreceptive  lap.  We  turned  a  point, 
while  I  was  pondering  this  chilling  phenome- 
non, and  the  "big  water"  opened  out  before 
[188] 


"Big  Water"  and  Cold 

us.  His  Lordship  turned  admiringly  to 
William  Teddy,  who  up  to  this  time  had 
declared  his  complete  ignorance  of  English, 
and  said: 

"I  say,  old  chap,  now  this  is  perfectly 
;  ripping — is  n't  it?" 

Failing  entirely  to  catch  the  really  con- 
tagious spontaneity  of  that  burst  of  -  en- 
thusiasm, William  Teddy  grunted — and  Fred 
and  Jim  and  I  just  incontinently  guffawed. 

There  were  quite  a  wind  and  a  choppy 
sea  on  Lake  Manitowick.  That  was  where 
my  lap-chilling  roller  had  come  from. 

It  was  fortunate  for  us  that  our  course 
took  us  around  a  bend  and  out  of  the  trough 
of  the  sea.  Lake  Manitowick  is  eight  miles 
long  and  the  foam-crested  rollers  that  were 
sweeping  down  that  eight-mile  stretch  made 
no  place  for  a  canoe.  Jim  and  Peter  made 
the  mistake  of  trying  to  hurry  the  escape 
with  full  steam  ahead  and  their  canoe  had 
shipped  a  good  deal  of  water  before  we  shouted 
to  them  to  "head  up  into  it"  and  take  it 
[189] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

easier.  We  saw  two  ospreys  circling  about 
in  the  zenith  when  the  shores  of  the  lake 
began  tapering  together,  preparatory  to  that 
mystic  change  into  a  river-mouth.  There 
was  the  ospreys'  nest  in  a  giant  jack-pine 
when  I  focused  the  camera  upon  it,  but, 
somehow,  the  nest  was  effaced  from  the 
pine  when  the  film  was  developed. 

"There's  the  river!"  shouted  George. 
Having  implicit  confidence  in  George,  I 
shouted  "There's  the  river"  to  the  other 
three  canoes,  but,  personally,  I  saw  nothing 
in  the  sand  beach  ahead,  apparently  un- 
broken for  miles,  to  warrant  this  enthusiasm. 
Then  the  sand  beach  began  swinging  open 
like  a  gate  and,  as  we  moved  to  the  left,  wider 
grew  the  opening  and  the  mouth  of  the  Michi- 
pocoten  River.  Inasmuch  as  we  had  come 
about  eight  hundred  miles  for  that  moment 
it  meant  something.  Its  width  is  singularly 
uniform — between  two  and  three  hundred 
yards,  perhaps.  Of  course,  the  country  is 
rough  and  broken,  though  the  banks  of  the 
[190] 


Achievements  and  Invidious  Comparisons. 


Mutual  Surprises 


river  are  generally  low  and  heavily  wooded, 
down  to  the  very  water's  edge.  We  were 
going  quietly.  The  four  canoes  were  strung 
out  in  single  file  and  we  were  all  too  busy 
with  our  own  thoughts  to  fling  conversation 
across  the  waters.  That  made  possible 
that  which  happened.  George  and  I  were 
close  to  the  bank.  I  think  George  had  a 
reason  in  this.  We  turned  a  long  narrow 
point,  beyond  which  an  alcove  from  the 
river  ran  inland  and  made  a  little  lagoon. 

"Don't  move  too  quick,"  said  George  in 
a  whisper,  "but  look  up  there  by  dat  big 
stump." 

A  bull  moose  had  lifted  his  great  head  from 
the  water.  He  had  heard  or  scented  some- 
thing, but  mistaken  the  direction.  Every 
muscle  and  nerve  in  that  huge  body  bespoke 
suspicion,  very  close  to  terror.  He  stood 
perfectly  immovable,  listening,  sniffing,  for, 
maybe,  fifteen  seconds.  Slowly,  the  breeze 
that  had  carried  the  warning  grew  more 
candid  with  that  monarch  of  the  wild  places. 
[191] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

Slowly  he  turned  his  great  head  in  our  direc- 
tion, and  surveyed  us  calmly,  majestically. 
Then,  with  a  snort,  more  of  contempt  than 
fear,  he  whirled  about  and  disappeared  in 
the  thicket  without  a  sound.  The  incident 
could  have  been  no  more  graphic,  yet  unreal, 
had  I  been  sitting  in  a  vaudeville  theatre 
and  seen  it  upon  a  moving-picture  screen. 

His  Lordship's  canoe  came  up  then  and 
William  Teddy  and  George  cut  loose  a  terrific 
broadside  of  Chippewa  conversation.  That 
annoyed  Fred.  He  said  it  was  cowardly 
to  gossip  like  that  behind  the  back  of  a 
decent,  law-abiding  bull  moose  and  asked 
George  if  he  knew  what  might  happen  if 
a  scandal  like  that  ever  got  around  among  the 
other  "meese"  of  that  congressional  district. 

About  that  time  I  looked  at  my  watch.  I 
had  a  purpose  in  it.  George  had  promised 
the  meeting-up  with  trout  for  three  o'clock. 
It  was  then  2.30  and  I  hadn't  noticed  any 
very  conspicuous  trout-emporia  in  the  vicinity. 
Jim  remembered  it,  too. 
[192] 


The  Trout-Tryst 


"How  about  that  three  o'clock  date  of 
ours,  George?"  Jim  asked. 

George  grinned.  "  We  get  there  all  right, " 
he  said. 

We  heard  the  rapids  before  we  saw  them. 
Indeed,  we  were  n't  a  hundred  yards  from 
Pigeon  Falls  when  the  announcement  came. 
There  is  a  fall  of  eighteen  feet  there  in  a 
half-mile.  The  whole  Michipocoten  River 
squeezes  itself  into  a  mad  jumble  of  waters 
and  rocks  scarcely  fifty  feet  wide  and  goes 
roaring  down  the  slide,  until  the  hills  fling 
back  echoes  of  the  turmoil.  We  went  ashore, 
just  where  the  waters  begin  to  wrinkle  up 
and  look  oily  in  the  first  clutch  of  the  mael- 
strom. 

"Here  dem  trout,"  said  George,  stepping 
out  of  the  canoe  and  waving  his  hand  airily 
with  a  grin  toward  the  roaring  rapids.  I 
looked  at  my  watch.  It  lacked  five  minutes 
of  three  o'clock. 

"Hand  me  that  rod-case,  Tommie,"  said 
Jim.  Then  began  a  lively  scramble,  putting 
13  [193] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

up  rods,  going  down  to  the  bottom  of  duffel- 
bags  for  reels  and  leader-boxes  and  fly-books. 
As  the  race  grew  hotter  and  the  fever  raged 
more  fiercely  in  our  veins,  bags  were  in- 
continently dumped  out  on  the  rocks,  until 
that  portage  looked  like  a  rummage-sale. 
Jim  and  His  Lordship  were  already  casting. 
Fred  was  about  to  plunge  into  the  torrent  to 
get  nearer  a  likely  looking  swirl.  I  was  debat- 
ing whether  to  use  a  Montreal  or  a  Parmache- 
nee  Belle  for  the  tail-fly,  when  I  beheld  George 
engaged  in  some  very  significant  manoeuvres. 
I  ceased  my  trout-preparations  and  watched 
George.  First,  he  stood  up  on  a  rock  and 
intently  scrutinized  that  expanse  of  furious 
water.  Then  he  came  back  and  examined 
the  canoe  and  the  paddles.  Then  he  talked 
vivaciously  with  William  Teddy  and  Pete. 
William  T.,  it  must  be  remembered,  could  n't 
speak  English.  Something  in  George's  eye, 
too,  was  dancing. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do,   George?" 
I  inquired  languidly. 

[i94l 


£ 


An  Idea  is  Born 


"We  portage  the  t'ings  'round  rapeed  here, " 
he  said. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  I  said,  "but  what  are  you 
going  to  do  with  the  canoes?" 

George  grinned  sheepishly.  "Well,  I 
guess — mebbe — I  try  run  rapeed,"  he  said. 

"All  right,"  I  said,  dropping  my  rod. 
"Let  's  do  that." 

George's  face  fell.  He  told  me  it  was 
quite  out  of  the  question.  He  said  that  his 
license  held  him  responsible  to  the  Canadian 
government  for  my  personal  safety  and  that, 
should  the  rapids  gobble  me  down,  he  would 
be  a  marked  man  and  never,  never  be  per- 
mitted to  nursemaid  any  more  fool-tourists. 
Then  I  talked  to  George  rather  pertly,  I 
fear.  I  told  him  I  was  n't  a  tourist,  by  a 
blankety-blank  sight ;  that  this  was  my  party 
and  my  license  and  that,  if  the  time  should 
come  that  I  must  have  a  fussy  chaperon 
clucking  around  me,  I  'd  pass  up  the  wil- 
derness and  take  my  vacation  feeding  the 
goldfish  in  the  park  aquarium.  George 
[i95] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

was  deeply  affected,  but  obdurate.  Then 
I  appealed  eloquently  to  William  Teddy, 
who  shook  his  head,  because  he  couldn't 
speak  English. 

I  walked  resolutely  down  to  the  shore 
and  stepped  into  one  of  the  canoes. 

"If  you  can  run  that  water,  I  can — and 
do  it  alone,  too,"  I  called  back.  For  a 
minute  I  actually  believed  that  I  might 
have  to  get  away  with  it.  Frankly,  I  was 
scared.  Then  George  yelled,  "Wait,  wait!" 
and  came  running  down  to  the  canoe.  It 
was  a  very  narrow  squeak.  However,  George 
insisted  upon  taking  William  Teddy  if  I 
was  determined  to  go.  William  was  to  take 
the  bow-paddle,  George  the  stern  paddle, 
and  I  the  amidships  paddle  and  to  paddle 
only  when  I  was  told.  I  promised.  Also 
I  told  George  to  tell  William  Teddy  that  when 
Willam  Teddy — because  he  could  n't  speak 
English — wanted  me  to  paddle  or  to  cease 
paddling,  he  was  to  shout  back  to  George 
and  George  was  to  tell  me.  It  seemed  a 
[196] 


Stand  up  and  Yell 


waste  of  priceless  time,  thus  to  relay  this 
vital  intelligence.  But  I  could  n't  see  any 
other  way  to  keep  straight. 

I  took  off  my  heavy  sweater  and  boots  and 
revolver.  We  paddled  out  in  front  of  the 
rapids.  George  stood  up  and  took  a  last 
survey.  Then  we  swung  about  and  came 
down.  I  can't  recall  many  sensations,  save 
the  overpowering  impulse  to  stand  up  and 
yell — which  of  course  would  have  been 
shockingly  inappropriate.  The  curious  thing 
about  running  swift  water  is  that  one  is  not 
conscious  of  the  terrific  speed,  indeed  of 
motion  at  all,  until  one  looks  at  the  shore 
rushing  backward.  George  and  William  T. 
would  put  their  paddles  far  out,  at  arm's 
length,  and  literally  pull  the  canoe  over 
to  the  submerged  paddle.  We  grazed  one 
rock.  Then  a  back-wash  from  another  rock 
slopped  into  the  canoe. 

William  T.  suddenly  developed  symptoms 
of  extreme  perturbation.  He  began  clawing 
madly  all  on  one  side  of  the  canoe.  I  could 
[i97l 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

see  that  he  wanted  to  cross  the  rapids  to  the 
other  side.  He  shouted  something  over 
his  shoulder.  I  waited  for  George  to  trans- 
late it.  Then  William  T.  shouted  it  again. 
Still  George  was  silent.  Perhaps  he  could  n't 
hear  Billy  T.'s  order  in  the  wild  tumult  of 
the  boiling  water.  William  T.,  anyway, — 
William  T.  who  could  n't  speak  any  English, 
— could  n't  stand  it  another  second.  He 
whirled  around  on  me  with  his  black  eyes 
flashing  and  yelled  in  my  wondering  ear: 

"  Paddle  on  the  left  side— paddle— paddle- 
like  hell!" 

We  flashed  by  Fred  and  Jim  and  one  could 
have  knocked  their  eyes  off  their  cheeks 
nicely  with  a  stick.  We  fairly  hurdled  a 
sunken  log  and  came  to  the  end  of  the  slide, 
a  sheer  drop  of  about  three  feet.  I  glanced 
over  the  brink  as  we  tore  down  upon  it  and 
fully  expected  to  Annette  Kellermann  into 
those  crystalline  depths.  But  William  T. 
was  ready  to  offer  the  closing  exhibition  of 
his  skill.  Just  as  we  made  the  jump,  he 
[198] 


The   Firesand   Is    "a    Pretty    and   Compact  River." 


Miracles  and  Idioms 


gave  the  bow  of  the  canoe  a  mighty  flip 
off  to  left.  Instead  of  hitting  nose-on  and 
diving,  we  smacked  the  lower  level  with  an 
even  keel  and  raced  off  into  the  still  slack- 
water  again. 

I  turned  to  grinning  William  T.  and  said 
frankly: 

"Under  compulsion,  Billy,  you  can  shoot 
bad  water  just  as  well  as  you  can  shoot  good 
English.  No  more  of  that  bunk  or  no  more 
tobacco.'* 

The  miracle  worked  lasting  wonders.  The 
excitement  that  had  brought  profanity  broke 
the  silence  of  the  tomb.  Thereafter  William 
T.'s  English  idioms  were  the  life  and  joy 
of  the  camp. 

Jim,  meanwhile,  was  keeping  his  three- 
o'clock-date  with  those  trout.  Moreover, 
the  trout  behaved  just  as  any  ingenuous  and 
single-minded  trout  that  have  n't  seen  a 
high-priced  fly  in  about  twenty  years  should 
behave.  Fred  brought  the  first  bulletin 
from  Jim.  He  raced  down  to  the  spot  where 
[199] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

the  duffel  was  piled  and  said  Jim  had  hooked 
something  in  the  rapids  which  he  thought 
was  probably  a  submarine  and  wanted  three 
or  four  landing  nets.  We  went  up  and  found 
Jim  standing  on  a  rock  full  of  optimistic 
estimates  as  to  the  size  of  the  fish  and  blood- 
chilling  epithets  for  us  and  our  delays. 
George  went  right  out  into  the  rapids — neck- 
deep — for  that  trout.  And  each  one  that 
Jim  or  Fred  or  His  Lordship  hooked  in  that 
torrent  fought  his  captor  gloriously  to  the 
last  swish  of  George's  deadly  net. 

When  the  tents  were  up  and  we  'd  bathed 
and  put  on  dry  clothes  and  His  Lordship 
had  put  his  moustaches  to  bed  for  the  night 
and  those  trout  were  spluttering  in  Tommie's 
frying-pan  and  we  made  the  Sign  of  the 
Wolf  Track  with  four  tin-cups  grouped  to- 
gether and  raised  chin-high,  we  blessed  our 
blundering  benefactor  who  had  heralded 
the  fact  that  "  There  're  no  trout  in  the 
Michipocoten. " 

Of  course,  we  camped  right  there,  at  the 
[200] 


Too  Many  Nocturnes 


lower  end  of  those  rapids.  I  find  that  at 
this  camp  I  made  two  entries  in  the  Log  to 
which  I  evidently  attached  tremendous  im- 
portance when  I  made  them.  First,  George 
and  Tommie  contrived  to  make  some  highly 
palatable  bread  in  the  frying-pan.  Second, 
I  caught  a  big  wall-eyed  pike  below  the 
rapids  on  a  Parmachenee  Belle.  But  those 
events,  in  retrospection,  fail  to  provoke  a 
thrill  now.  It  is  curious  what  a  self-centred 
egotist  a  camper  can  become.  But  it 's  more 
curious  that  a  wall-eyed  pike  should  rise 
to  a  fly,  as  this  finny  aesthete  unquestionably 
did.  After  dinner  that  night  Pete  took  a 
hook,  about  the  size  of  a  yacht's  anchor, 
baited  it  with  raw  pork,  and  yanked  grass- 
pike  out  of  the  slackwater  at  our  front 
doorstep  until  his  arm  ached.  That 's  why 
we  found  no  trout  in  the  beautiful  riffles 
just  below  the  falls. 

I  am  tired  of  ending  these  chapters  with 
the  night-enshrouded   camp,    the    camp-fire 
burning  low,  and  the  north  wind  moaning 
[201] 


William  Teddy's  Tongue 

in  the  Norway-pines  and  everybody  snoring 
vilely.  It  is  symbolic  and  logical,  perhaps, 
but  I  don't  want  the  reader  to  get  the  im- 
pression that  I  can't  stop  writing  without 
being  put  to  sleep. 

The  next  morning — there,  we  hurdled 
that  alluring  picture  of  the  nocturnal  wil- 
derness— the  next  morning,  we  picked  up 
and  paddled  off — across  Whitefish  Lake.  I 
am  not  sure — neither  is  George — whether 
Whitefish  Lake  was  so  named  because 
somebody  really  thought  he  saw  a  whitefish 
in  it,  or  thought  the  map  made  the  lake 
look  like  a  whitefish.  I  have  too  much 
respect,  even  affection,  for  the  maker  of  my 
map  to  be  drawn  into  the  discussion.  Any- 
way, we  trolled  the  whole  six  miles  of  White- 
fish  Lake,  in  the  vague  hope  that  a  namaycush 
would  become  enamored  of  the  spoon  or  a 
whitefish  get  side-swiped  by  it — with  no 
material  returns.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
was  full  of  long-necked  weeds. 

Then,  about  ten  o'clock,  we  came  to 
[202] 


His  Lordship  Needful 


Frenchman's  Rapid,  with  its  exquisite  setting 
and  many  trout.  We  lunched  there,  and 
lunch,  when  you  have  His  Lordship  to  pre- 
pare the  convivial  preliminaries,  offers  a 
place  to  halt,  quite  as  attractive  and  fitting 
as  a  "night-enshrouded  camp."  - 


[203! 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  TROUT  OF  CAT  PORTAGE,  THE  FULFILMENT 
OF  ELEVEN  MONTHS'  DREAMING 

/"^EORGE  thought  it  "safe  and  sane"  to 
^~*  portage  the  outfit  a  half-mile  around 
the  falls  at  Frenchman's  Rapid.  After  Wil- 
liam Teddy's  triumph  at  Pigeon  Falls,  I  felt 
competent  to  shoot  Frenchman's  Rapid — 
yea,  shoot  it  blindfolded,  playing  a  mandolin 
with  one  hand  and  writing  my  autograph  with 
the  other.  Fred,  too,  was  enthusiastic  about 
it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Fred  is  always  per- 
fectly willing  to  take  a  hundred-to-one  shot 
and  play  it  either  way.  Fred's  life  is  a  hot- 
footed pursuit  of  new  sensations.  I  am  ready 
to  bet  a  lace-doily  against  the  last  cigarette 
in  camp  that  the  first  man  that  bumps  his 
monoplane  into  an  asteroid  is  Fred.  Any 
expedition  that  holds  out  the  slightest  chance 
[204] 


Curiosity  Trail 


of  adventure  is  no  place  for  a  man  who  owes 
a  duty  to  his  family — if  Fred  is  along.  But 
Jim  and  His  Lordship  would  n't  hear  of  it — 
our  shooting  Frenchman's  Rapid,  I  mean. 
They  didn't  want  their  trip  marred  by  a 
fatality — even  a  fool's  fatality — and  that 
argument  was  too  honest  to  be  answera- 
ble so  we  hit  the  trail,  while  the  Indians 
portaged. 

It  was  a  beautiful  trail,  candid  and  well- 
behaved.  In  fact  it  was  so  good  that  when 
Fred  and  I  struck  an  intersecting  trail  that 
looked  fresh,  we  were  simultaneously  seized 
with  a  desire  to  leave  the  portage-trail  and 
see  where  the  new  trail  led  to.  It  looked  as 
if  it  might  lead  to  a  lake.  The  contour  of 
the  country  indicated  it.  We  knew  it  would 
take  an  hour  for  the  Indians  to  get  the  things 
over  the  portage,  so  we  struck  off  on  that 
siren  trail. 

It  did  lead  to  a  lake,  a  beautiful,  placid, 
brooding  little  lake,  and,  to  our  surprise,  we 
saw  an  Indian  tepee  on  the  far  side  of  it. 
[205] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

We  walked  around  the  lake — still  on  the 
trail — and  found  an  Indian  patching  a  birch- 
bark  canoe,  in  front  of  the  tepee.  I  recog- 
nized him  as  Jim  Radigeau,  or  something 
like  that.  Anyway,  it  was  Jim.  The  last 
time — and  only  time — I  had  seen  Jim  was 
five  years  ago  up  on  St.  Ignace  Island,  in 
Nepigon  Bay.  Then  we  found  a  pulp-wood 
camp  just  as  we  had  decided  to  sleep  under 
a  spruce  all  night,  and  the  next  day  Jim 
took  us  first  to  a  trout-stream  and  then  to 
our  camp. 

Jim  said  he  had  his  "woman"  and  kids 
in  the  tepee.  Fred  and  I  went  in  to  call  and 
take  some  pictures.  There  were  a  squaw 
and  four  half  or  three  quarter  naked  young- 
sters in  that  tepee.  Nobody  seemed  to  be 
enjoying  the  call.  We  stayed  just  long 
enough  in  that  tepee  to  exchange  a  few  half- 
Chippewa  commonplaces  and  observe  that 
all  the  members  of  Jim's  family  looked  droopy 
and  languid.  I  tried  to  draw  one  little 
papoose  into  conversation,  but  there  was 
[206] 


Solicitude  and  — 


nothing  doing.  When  we  came  out  I  said, 
"Jim, — the  wife  and  the  kids  don't  seem  to 
be  well." 

Jim  said  "  Naw"  and  went  right  on  putting 
pitch  on  the  canoe-seams. 

"Been  sick  long?"  asked  Fred  sympa- 
thetically. 

"Two,  free  day — mebbe  week  or  two," 
said  Jim. 

"What 's  the  matter  with  them — do  you 
know,  Jim?"  I  asked. 

"Not  much — just  leetle  seek,  I  guess — 
smallpox — man  at  Post  he  say." 

In  that  dash  through  the  brush  Fred,  I 
recall  vaguely,  fell  three  times.  We  took 
four  or  five  baths,  brushed  our  teeth,  and 
rubbed  ourselves  thoroughly  with  all  of  His 
Lordship's  moust  ache-in  vigor  at  or.  In  fact, 
we  took  all  the  precautions  that  the  limited 
medical-kit  permitted  and  then  promised 
each  other  to  say  nothing  to  Jim  or  His 
Lordship,  for  fear  of  alarming  them  need- 
lessly, until  the  worst  should  manifest  itself. 
[207] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

It  was  another  eloquent  lesson  to  "stick  to 
the  trail." 

I  should  like  very  much  to  write  five  or 
six  books  about  that  stretch  of  the  Michipo- 
coten  River  between  Frenchman's  Rapid 
and  Cat  Portage.  That  is  n't  more  than 
two  miles.  We  should  have  been  delighted 
to  have  found  it  a  hundred.  It  is  there  a 
typical  trout-stream,  magnified  about  ten- 
fold. The  current  is  swift — here  and  there 
riffles — and  always  on  one  bank  or  the  other 
there  is  a  deep,  dark  hole.  We  were  casting 
into  those  holes  constantly — that  is,  as 
many  of  them  as  we  could  reach  before  we 
whizzed  by  in  the  canoes.  A  man  would 
get  a  rise  and  never  have  the  chance  to  give 
that  chagrined  trout  an  encore,  if  he  missed, 
and  it  took  a  trout  with  a  big  appetite  and  a 
good  eye  to  hit  those  flies  as  they  raced  past. 
It  was  a  crime  to  fish  that  magnificent  water 
in  that  Cook-tourist  fashion  and,  more  shame 
to  us,  we  knew  it. 

Once,  I  remember,  I  cast  in  beneath  the 
[208] 


In  Amber  Shadows 


overhanging  bank,  to  deep,  dark,  amber 
water  in  the  shadows.  My  flies  hit  a 
log — I  thought  I  had  lost  the  leader — 
and  then  toppled  off  into  the  water.  A 
great  trout  struck,  just  as  the  fleeing  ca- 
noe tightened  the  line.  And  I  struck  back. 
He  was  too  good  a  fish  to  tow  astern  like 
a  saw-log.  He  deserved  better  things.  I 
insisted  upon  a  landing  on  a  sand  beach. 
George  swung  in  and  we  pulled  that  gor- 
geous little  savage  out  on  the  snow-white 
sands.  We  took  a  half-dozen,  casting  from 
that  beach  over  into  the  deep  water  across 
the  river. 

There  was  one  thing  we  did  perfect,  though, 
during  that  river  trip.  That  was  the  theory 
and  technique  of  "inside  baseball."  When 
you  wanted  anything  which  you  knew  some 
other  canoe  contained,  all  you  had  to  do 
was  to  yell  for  it — and  catch  it.  We  grew 
so  expert  that  we  could  pick  tobacco-pouches, 
cigarettes,  tin  cups,  matches,  map-cases,  fly- 
books,  and  other  sybaritic  articles,  capable  of 
14  [209] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

a  fair  trajectory,  out  of  the  clear  northern 
atmosphere  with  an  accuracy  that  brought 
applause  from  George  and  appreciative  giggles 
from  William  T.  himself. 

We  did  n't  run  the  rapids  at  Cat  Portage, 
either.  I  was  n't  conscious  of  the  vaguest 
impulse  to  run  those  rapids  after  we  had 
had  a  look  at  them.  There  is  a  drop  there 
of  thirty-three  feet  within  a  half-mile  and 
the  water  bellows  down  a  set  of  terraces,  in 
one  place  taking  a  straight  fall  of  ten  feet. 
It  was  about  two  o'clock  when  we  reached 
the  upper  end  of  Cat  Portage,  and  after 
carrying  to  the  lower  end,  we  did  precisely 
what  we  should  not  have  done  and  might 
have  been  expected  to  do — namely,  fish  at 
the  wrong  end  of  the  rapids.  It  was  ideal 
trout-water,  save  for  the  inexplicable  absence 
of  trout.  We  did  n't  get  a  rise  down  there 
at  the  base  of  the  falls.  His  Lordship  said 
he  didn't  know  much  about  the  habits  of 
trout,  but  if  that  were  a  good  specimen  of 
the  taste  and  judgment  of  a  trout  of  average 
[210] 


Inspirations  and  Results 

intelligence,  he  did  n't  care  to  know  any 
more. 

Fred  and  I  sat  down  on  a  roll  of  blankets 
and  discussed  this  palpable  nature-fake  on 
the  trout's  part.  Suddenly  Fred  slapped 
his  thigh  and  said: 

"I've  got  it!" 

Eagerly  I  inquired  for  the  clue. 

"It  is  very  simple,"  he  chuckled.  "The 
reason  the  trout  are  n't  rising  down  here  is 
because  we  're  fishing  where  there  are  n't  any 
trout." 

"Wonderful ! "  I  applauded  warmly.  " Your 
idea,  then,  is  to  take  a  trout-census  of  these 
rapids,  learn  where  the  trout-population  is 
most  congested,  and  fish  there.  Fine!  Where 
do  you  suggest  we  begin?" 

"Up  the  rapids,  of  course,"  said  Fred, 
ignoring  my  futile  irony.  "We've  made 
that  mistake  every  time  we  've  struck  any 
rapids.  The  trout  are  in  the  rapids,  neither 
above  nor  below.  Come  on!" 

Fred  and  I  hit  the  back  trail.     The  place 

[211] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

which  we  selected  to  leave  the  trail  and  work 
down  to  the  rapids  was  excellently  chosen. 
Evidently  a  tornado  had  also  chosen  that 
place  to  make  a  landing  recently.  Big  cedars 
and  pines  were  scattered  about  and  piled 
upon  one  another  in  beautiful  confusion. 
It  was  very  diverting  to  walk  along,  over 
and  under  this  heap  of  jack-straws,  meanwhile 
carrying  a  trout-rod  with  three  flies  dangling 
and  all  looking  for  trouble. 

I  knew  we  must  be  getting  pretty  close 
to  the  rapids — the  roar  told  us  that.  Fred 
parted  the  bushes  at  last  and  began  capering 
on  his  log.  I  joined  him.  There  was  some 
justification  for  capering.  At  our  feet,  maybe 
ten  feet  below,  was  a  deep,  shadowy  pool  with 
a  little  private  waterfall  of  its  own.  It  was  a 
sort  of  quiet  side-street  to  the  main  thorough- 
fare of  traffic  out  there  beyond.  The  trees 
canopied  it.  Fred  clung  with  one  arm  to 
a  tree-trunk  and  dropped  his  three  flies 
into  those  mysterious  waters.  That  is,  he 
would  have  done  that,  if  the  trout  hadn't 
[212] 


Capering  Condoned 


jumped  and  grabbed  his  flies  before  they 
reached  the  water. 

"Oh,  my  boy!"  said  Fred,  with  repressed 
emotion.  "This  is  simply  a  shame!  Here 
I  shall  settle  down  to  a  contented  and  tran- 
quil old  age." 

But  we  did  not  settle  down.  That 's  the 
restless  ambition  of  a  trout-fisherman — when 
he  hooks  his  first  pound-trout,  he  's  sure  life 
holds  no  other  work  for  him.  After  his 
third  pound-trout,  he  begins  to  wonder  if 
there  is  n't  a  pound-and-a-half  trout  in  the 
next  pool.  His  first  two-pounder  sires  the 
ambition  to  make  it  four  pounds.  Finally 
ambition — or  greed — had  driven  us  right 
out  into  the  middle  of  the  rapids  with  such 
a  din  all  about  us  that  we  had  to  scream 
into  each  other's  ears.  There  was  a  sort 
of  granite  backbone  through  the  centre  of 
that  mad  water  and  we  fished  from  that, 
casting  sometimes  over  into  the  torrent  on 
the  far  side  and  letting  the  flies  run  down 
with  the  welter,  and  sometimes  dropping 
[213] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

the  flies  over  the  brink  of  a  precipice  into 
the  foam  at  the  base  of  the  falls.  Sometimes 
you  could  see  a  lithe,  orange  little  form 
shoot  up  above  the  white-caps  for  an  instant 
as  he  rushed  at  your  fly.  But  that  was  n't 
often.  Generally,  the  first  warning,  an  elec- 
trifying thrill,  came  along  your  line  and  your 
protesting  rod  would  suddenly  bend  double. 
Jim  joined  us — to  see  why  we  were  delaying 
the  expedition's  departure  down  the  river. 
He  came  to  chasten  and  hurry  us.  Jim 
took  one  cast — it  was  to  be  "just  one  quick 
one";  then  Jim  was  lost  completely  to  the 
call  of  duty  and  the  flight  of  time.  No 
fish  we  got  in  those  two  delirious  hours  went 
above  two  pounds.  But  in  the  swift,  cold 
water  that  gave  them  all  the  rugged  strength 
and  ferocity  of  the  wilderness  and  made  every 
ounce  of  resistance  tell,  each  trout  was  really 
as  good  as  a  three-pounder.  Most  of  them 
we  killed  on  Montreal-flies,  although  my 
largest  took  a  "Willie  H."— a  local  fly.  We 
lost,  probably,  twice  as  many  as  we  landed. 
[214] 


To  Love  and  Duty  Lost 

In  that  torrent,  they  often  succeeded  in 
tearing  the  hook  from  their  mouths  in  the 
first  furious  rush. 

His  Lordship  followed  Jim.  He  came  up 
to  tell  us — what  Jim,  some  hours  before,  had 
come  to  tell  us — that  our  thoughtless  delay 
was  delaying  the  departure  of  the  expedition 
— and  we  had  to  find  a  camping-site.  His 
Lordship  was  just  as  indignant  and  logical 
and  entirely  right  in  his  contention  as  Jim 
had  been.  We  pressed  a  rod  into  His  Lord- 
ship's hands.  Two  hours  later  we  had  to 
lay  violent  hands  upon  His  Lordship  to 
arouse  him  to  his  duty-sense,  because,  this 
time,  George  had  come  to  look  for  us,  and 
it  was  really  getting  dark. 

My  final  departure  from  the  college-campus 
— one  June  night  a  considerable  number  of 
years  ago  now — was  no  more  reluctant  than 
my  departure  from  that  wild,  trout-sur- 
rounded rock,  the  focus  of  the  Cat  Portage 
Rapids.  We  talk  of  it  now  in  whispers  when 
we  meet.  And  I — I  brazenly  declare  it — I 
[215] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

dream  of  it,  particularly  when  the  Big 
City  has  been  grinding  me  with  unusual 
brutality  and  my  brain  and  body  pray  mem- 
ory to  bring  just  a  little  relief. 

For  three  miles,  then,  in  the  twilight 
we  ran  rapids,  innocent,  playful  little  rapids 
for  the  most  way — but  continuous  rapids. 
It  rained,  too.  But  as  we  had  sent  Pete 
and  Tommie  on  ahead  with  one  canoe  to  put 
up  the  tents  and  start  dinner-preparations, 
we  paddled  right  into  luxury.  Shelter  and 
dry  clothes  and  a  roaring  fire  were  ready  for 
us — in  a  grove  of  huge  cedars  that  stood  on 
the  crest  of  a  high  bank. 

I  observed  that  when  we  broached  the  topic, 
ever  congenial,  of  the  dinner  bill-of-fare,  both 
Tommie  and  George  were  elaborately  secre- 
tive. Both  of  them  were  fairly  swathed  in 
some  huge  and  portentous  mystery.  Knowing 
the  Indian  mind  a  little — a  mind  that  is  child- 
like in  its  simplicity  and  gentleness  —  I 
dropped  the  subject  and  left  dinner  to  them 
as  they,  very  evidently,  longed  to  have  me  do. 
[216] 


Coup  Culinary 


When  we  scampered  under  the  dining-fly,, 
the  pyrotechnic  set-piece  was  touched  off. 
There  were  two  ducks!  George  had  killed 
them — while  we  were  fishing  Cat  Portage — 
and  killed  them  with  Fred's  little  twenty- 
two-calibre  rifle,  too.  How  Tommie  had 
contrived  to  roast  them  in  an  hour,  we  shall 
never  know.  But  they  were  good,  almost 
as  good  as  the  expressions  of  beatific  delight 
on  those  gentle  red  men's  faces  as  they 
watched  us  fall  upon  the  birds. 

The  mosquitoes  came  down  from  the 
swamps  in  large  family-parties  that  night 
and  dallied  with  us  till  sunrise.  But  it  was 
the  first  time  and  only  time  on  the  trip 
and — let  this  be  inscribed  in  letters  large 
and  luminous — not  a  dozen  black-flies  did  we 
see  on  the  Michipocoten  River. 

Two  red  squirrels,  playing  follow-the- 
leader  or  hare-and-hounds  along  the  ridge- 
pole of  my  tent  and  using  absolutely  the 
most  profane  language  I  have  ever  listened 
to  in  the  woods,  awakened  me.  His  Lord- 
[217] 


The  Trout  of  Cat  Portage 

ship  was  on  his  knees  in  front  of  the  tent 
trying  to  start  a  fire,  while  Jim,  from  an 
eminently  safe  and  warm  vantage-point, 
between  his  Hudson  Bay  blankets,  was 
telling  His  Lordship  minutely  how  to  do  it. 
To  His  Lordship's  outspoken  relief,  Fred 
and  I  fell  upon  James  and  the  argumentative 
uproar  reminded  George  that  he  had  n't 
awakened  us — which  he  forthwith  came  to 
do. 

The  rain-storm  had  blown  on,  up  toward 
the  Arctic  Circle,  and  the  wilderness  was  all 
fresh  and  glittering  when  we  pushed  the 
canoes  out  into  the  stream — for  the  last 
day  on  the  Michipocoten.  Almost  imme- 
diately we  glided  down  upon  wonderful 
trout-water,  semi-rapids  and  deep  pools 
beneath  the  slack-water  that  eddied  about 
great  stumps  and  rocks.  Also,  almost  im- 
mediately, we  began  getting  big  rises  and 
hooking  big  fish.  We  began  making  pools — 
gambling,  not  trout-pools — of  a  dollar  a 
corner.  Every  time  a  man  netted  a  fish, 
[218] 


Shadow  of  the  Cauldron 

Jim,  in  the  rearmost  canoe,  would  make  an 
entry  in  the  Log  and  re-adjust  the  "batting 
averages." 

Near  the  mouth  of  the  An-jo-go-mi-ni 
River — which  is  merely  an  indolent  creek,  by 
the  way — George  and  I,  in  the  first  canoe, 
suddenly  shot  around  a  bend  and  found  our- 
selves in  a  great  granite  basin.  The  en- 
trance was  scarcely  ten  yards  across.  The 
basin  was,  perhaps,  fifty  yards  in  diameter 
and  at  the  outlet  it  narrowed  up  again  as 
it  was  at  the  entrance.  The  walls  of  rock 
arose  straight  out  of  the  water  and  towered 
up  fifty  to  a  hundred  feet  high.  In  there  the 
water  boiled  and  circled  about  upon  itself 
like  a  cauldron.  Here  and  there  a  great 
boulder  showed  its  head  intermittently,  as 
the  torrent  raced  over  it  and  subsided  for 
the  moment.  It  was,  indeed,  a  giant's 
chamber. 

The  instant  the  bow  of  the  canoe  cleared 
the  entrance  and  I  cast  over  near  the  rocks, 
a  tremendous  fish  struck  the  drop-fly  and  I 
[219] 


The  Trout  at  Cat  Portage 

set  the  hook  in  him  solidly  and  felt  the  thrill 
of  the  living  weight  on  the  line.  He  made 
just  one  rush,  straight  for  the  canoe,  and  went 
under  it,  before  George,  ever  alert,  could 
sweep  the  bow  around.  I  could  no  more 
snub  that  fury  than  I  could  have  snubbed 
a  street-car,  hooked  to  a  four-ounce  rod. 
And  the  inevitable  and  most  lamentable 
happened:  the  second  joint  of  my  rod 
snapped  with  a  sharp  report.  Then,  murder 
flared  up  in  my  heart.  For  about  five  years 
life  had  held  nothing  dearer  to  my  heart 
than  that  rod — that  is,  nothing  very  much 
dearer.  It  had  accompanied  me  along  the 
whole  coast-line  of  Lake  Superior  and  it 
had  never  faltered  or  complained  or  sulked. 
Just  before  I  left  the  Big  City  for  this  trip, 
the  sporting-goods  man  who  had  re-wound 
and  shellacked  that  dear  little  rod  had  offered 
me  half  of  his  store  and  one  of  the  children 
for  it — and  I  had  laughed  with  a  light  heart 
at  him.  So  George  and  I  fought  that  trout- 
beast  with  clenched  teeth.  When  George 

[220] 


Vengeance 

finally  netted  him  on  a  rock  we  shook  our 
fists  in  his  face  and  cursed  him. 

However,  His  Lordship,  Fred,  and  Jim, 
successively,  darting  through  that  opening 
into  the  maelstrom  and  heeding  my  shouts 
to  swing  over  into  the  slack-water,  so  as  to 
cover  that  great  pool,  speedily  began  mani- 
festing symptoms  of  profound  agitation.  At 
one  time  the  three  canoes  were  hooked-up 
to  three  big  trout  simultaneously  and  the 
evolutions,  quite  extemporaneous,  of  that 
flotilla  reminded  George  and  me  of  a  water 
carnival  more  than  anything  else.  However, 
there  was  nothing  festal  in  the  least  suggested 
by  the  language  which  they  used  when  they 
got  their  lines  intermingled  and  chased  their 
trout  underneath  one  another's  canoes. 

George  wrenched  us  away  from  that  granite 
chamber.  At  Storm  Hill  we  ran  some  rather 
ugly  rapids  and  at  noon  George  announced 
us  abreast  of  the  Firesand  River.  We  had 
heard  really  a  tremendous  lot  about  the 
Firesand.  On  the  steamer  coming  up  the 
[221] 


The  Trout  at  Cat  Portage 

shore  a  miner  told  us  that  he  had  camped  for 
two  weeks  once  on  the  Firesand  and  the 
trout  were  so  plentiful  and  savage  and  pes- 
tiferous that,  as  I  recall  now,  he  had  to  set 
wolf-traps  for  them  to  keep  them  out  of 
the  grub.  Naturally,  we  had  talked  a  great 
deal  and  looked  forward  with  liveliest  an- 
ticipation to  the  Firesand  River.  For  a 
time  I  could  n't  see  the  Firesand  at  all,  even 
after  George  had  pointed  it  out  and  assured 
me  that  it  was  n't  fifty  yards  away.  True, 
it  was  a  pretty  and  compact  river,  just  the 
kind  that  a  householder  would  like  to  have 
to  fill  his  bath-tub  o'  mornings  when  the 
pressure  at  the  city  water  works  is  lethargic 
and  slow.  There  might  have  been  a  trout 
in  it — if  the  trout  did  n't  mind  close  quarters, 
but  there  certainly  was  n't  room  for  two.  We 
were  so  disappointed  that  we  went  to  the 
beach  for  lunch  and  something  from  His  Lord- 
ship's flask.  One  of  us  was  forced  to  "take  it 
straight, "  too.  There  was  n't  enough  water 
in  the  Firesand  River  for  four  "chasers." 

[222] 


A  Varied  Program 


It  took  us  all  the  afternoon  to  get  through 
and  around  the  falls  of  the  Michipocoten. 
Those  are  the  real  falls  of  the  whole  great 
river.  In  three  miles  the  river  drops  one 
hundred  and  eighty-four  feet.  The  rational 
thing  to  do  there  is  to  load  the  canoes  on  a 
wagon — there  is  a  power-plant  there — and 
portage  around  in  comfort  and  dignity  and 
dryness.  However,  we  were  looking  for 
incident  and  color  and  disinclined  toward 
rationalism.  We  got  the  incident  and  color, 
too.  For  just  four  hours  we  were  at  it. 
We  ran  some  nasty  water.  We  portaged 
around  sheer  precipices.  We  cut  through 
dense  underbrush  with  our  axes  to  lug  the 
canoes.  We  carried  the  canoes  over  shallows. 
We  spilled  out  and  got  in  again.  We  were 
in  the  water  to  our  necks.  Fred  himself 
performed  a  submarine  feat  once,  when  the 
paddle,  upon  which  he  was  putting  his 
weight,  slipped  off  a  submerged  rock.  The 
last  two  hundred  yards  of  those  rapids  we 
tobogganed  down  an  oily  slide  in  which 
[223] 


The  Trout  at  Cat  Portage 

the  sprinter's  path  was  marked  off  by  jagged 
rocks,  sometimes  not  more  than  five  feet 
apart. 

By  that  time  it  was  six-thirty,  growing 
cold  and  dark,  and  we  were  very  wet.  George 
had  lost  his  hat  and  Jim  his  pipe.  Jim 
was  n't  sure  that  he  had  lost  his  pipe.  He 
said  he  thought  maybe  he  had  swallowed  it 
during  one  of  those  tense  moments  when 
his  canoe  had  the  alternative  of  hurdling 
a  boulder  or  going  through  it.  There  was  a 
good  place  to  camp  right  there.  And  yet 
the  idea  of  dashing  along,  not  stopping  until 
we  reached  the  old  Hudson's  Bay  post 
whence  we  had  started,  and  completing  the 
whole  Michipocoten  River  trip  that  night 
with  a  flourish  was  admittedly  attractive. 
I  quizzed  George  as  to  the  distance  down 
the  river  to  its  mouth. 

"Oh,  mebbe,  t'ree,  four  mile — yes,  sure, 
I  guess,  mebbe — five  mile,  sure,  'bout  dat." 

We  baled  out,  wrung  out,  lighted  up — and 
started.  The  sun  disappeared.  Then  came 
[224] 


In  the  Stretch 


the  brilliant  afterglow  of  the  northern  heavens. 
Every  man  paddled  and  paddled  hard,  be- 
cause every  man  was  cold  and  there  was 
no  other  way  for  any  man  to  keep  warm. 
We  raced  down  the  river.  Each  turn  we 
expected  to  be  the  opening  of  the  last  mile 
stretch,  and  George  would  say: 

"Oh,  mebbe,  two,  free  mile  more — sure, 
'boutdat." 

The  waters  of  the  river  turned  to  silver, 
then  gold,  then  purple.  We  passed  beau- 
tiful trout-water,  but  we  had  no  time  to  fish. 
We  turned  a  bend  of  the  river.  The  canoes 
were  going  silently,  every  man  intent  upon 
his  stroke.  There  was  a  sound  of  rolling 
pebbles.  There  was  a  sand-bank,  probably 
thirty  feet  high.  A  red  deer  had  been  drink- 
ing at  the  foot  of  it.  When  he  heard  us,  or 
saw  us,  he  had  no  choice  but  to  scramble  up 
that  bank  to  safety.  And  how  that  deer  did 
scramble!  He  was  a  big  six-point  buck  and 
it  took  him  three  minutes  to  climb  that  sliding 
sand  and  burst  into  the  thicket  with  a  snort, 
is  [225] 


The  Trout  at  Cat  Portage 

And  still  we  paddled.  We  were  going, 
probably,  seven  miles  an  hour  with  that 
slashing  current  and  had  been  at  it  for  an 
hour,  then  an  hour  and  a  half,  then  two  hours 
— and  still  no  Mission  and  familiar  white 
buildings  of  the  post.  George  pointed  out 
a  place  where,  thirty  years  ago,  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  had  deliberately  and  wisely 
changed  the  bed  of  the  river,  moved  it  over 
bodily  about  a  half-mile.  Once  the  river 
described  almost  a  closed  loop  there  and  the 
voyageurs  did  n't  care  for  the  mile  portage, 
besides.  It *s  a  serious-minded,  precocious 
little  corporation,  that  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany. 

My  back  muscles  were  fairly  squeaking 
and  I  could  feel  blisters  thriving  luxuriously 
on  my  poor  protesting  knee-caps,  when  I 
heard  a  dog  howl.  Then  several  dogs  and 
a  whole  half-wolf  pack  howled.  The  spire 
of  the  Mission  came  into  the  brilliant  sky 
and  we  smelled  wood-smoke  in  the  twilight 
and  heard  a  man  shout  to  us  from  the  shore. 

[226] 


And  so — at  Last — 


With  no  announcement,  we  glided  out  of 
the  last  turn  upon  the  broad  stretch  of  the 
river  and  there  lay  the  deserted  buildings 
of  the  post,  on  our  left,  their  whitewashed 
clapboards  and  little  window-panes  shimmer- 
ing in  the  white  moonlight.  We  felt  dis- 
tinctly romantic  and  historical — particularly 
His  Lordship.  We  could  fairly  fancy  our- 
selves wraiths  of  those  old  voyageurs,  spirits 
of  those  rare-old,  fair-old  days,  who  in  their 
vigorous  human  shapes  had  come  down 
through  just  the  wild  rapids  and  gorges 
and  trails  that  we  had  passed — straight  down 
through  the  great  wilderness  from  James 
Bay — and  now  saw  their  journey's  end  in 
the  lights  of  the  post,  where  hospitality  and 
money  and  gaudy  red  sashes  and  wine  and 
song  awaited  them.  Had  we  known  a 
chanson — as  only  dear  dead  Henry  Drum- 
mond  knew  them — we  should  have  sung  one 
as  we  swung  up  to  the  old  landing  place. 
But  we  didn't.  The  lights  were  out.  We 
scarcely  spoke  to  one  another  as  each  stepped 
[227] 


The  Trout  at  Cat  Portage 

stiffly  from  the  canoe.  It  really  was  not  a 
nice  sound  to  hear  the  grating  of  the  canoe- 
keels  on  the  beach.  To  be  sure,  it  meant 
camp,  a  fire,  dry  clothes,  a  drink,  and  dinner. 
But  it  meant,  also,  the  end  of  a  tremendous 
chapter  in  our  lives — a  chapter  never  old 
and  always  green.  And  such  a  realization 
is  always  bad,  the  only  really  bad  thing 
in  the  philosophy  of  the  wilderness  and  the 
calendar  of  Vacation  Days. 


THE  END. 


[228] 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


\BDec59RHt 


:  1^1959 


- 


- 


LD  21A-50m-4,'59 
(A1724slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


